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Does Nation Building Work?
Japan and Germany after World War II are the stock examples of succesful nation building. Iraq may become a stock example of unsuccesful nation building. But we can't learn very much from these examples if we don't know the population from which the sample was drawn. In other words, how many times has nation building been tried and how many times has it succeeded?
In an important paper in the Independent Review (not yet online but go ahead and subscribe - I am an assistant editor), James Payne starts the difficult job of assembing the population and examining the results. Payne defines nation building as "the use of ground troops to support a deliberative effort to create a democracy." Using this definition, he identifies 52 instances of nation building, all by the United States or Great Britain from the period 1850 to 2000. (The list is in the extension). Of these he identifies 14 or just 27 percent where the treatment could be considered a success, success defined as maintaining some semblance of democracy after ground troops were withdrawn.
Twenty-seven percent is not encouraging especially when we note that this is the raw percentage - some of these nations could have become democracies absent the intervention so the true success rate is probably lower.
Defining nation building and its success requires some judgment calls so there is plenty to quibble about in Payne's analysis. Nevertheless, with so many people pontificating about nation building it's good to see the first steps being taken to define exactly what it is that we are talking about.
Nation-building Military Occupations by the
United States and Great Britain, 1850-2000
Payne, James. 2006. Does Nation Building Work? The Independent Review. 10 (4).
U.S. Occupations
Austria 1945-1955 success
Cuba 1898-1902 failure
Cuba 1906-1909 failure
Cuba 1917-1922 failure
Dominican Republic 1911-1924 failure
Dominican Republic 1965-1967 success
Grenada 1983-1985 success
Haiti 1915-1934 failure
Haiti 1994-1996 failure
Honduras 1924 failure
Italy 1943-1945 success
Japan 1945-1952 success
Lebanon 1958 failure
Lebanon 1982-1984 failure
Mexico 1914-1917 failure
Nicaragua 1909-1910 failure
Nicaragua 1912-1925 failure
Nicaragua 1926-1933 failure
Panama 1903-1933 failure
Panama 1989-1995 success
Philippines 1898-1946 success
Somalia 1992-1994 failure
South Korea 1945-1961 failure
West Germany 1945-1952 success
British Occupations
Botswana 1886-1966 success
Brunei 1888-1984 failure
Burma (Myanmar) 1885-1948 failure
Cyprus 1914-1960 failure
Egypt 1882-1922 failure
Fiji 1874-1970 success
Ghana 1886-1957 failure
Iraq 1917-1932 failure
Iraq 1941-1947 failure
Jordan 1921-1956 failure
Kenya 1894-1963 failure
Lesotho 1884-1966 failure
Malawi (Nyasaland) 1891-1964 failure
Malaysia 1909-1957 success
Maldives 1887-1976 success
Nigeria 1861-1960 failure
Palestine 1917-1948 failure
Sierra Leone 1885-1961 failure
Solomon Islands 1893-1978 success
South Yemen (Aden) 1934-1967 failure
Sudan 1899-1956 failure
Swaziland 1903-1968 failure
Tanzania 1920-1963 failure
Tonga 1900-1970 success
Uganda 1894-1962 failure
Zambia (N. Rhodesia) 1891-1964 failure
Zimbabwe (S. Rhodesia) 1888-1980 failure
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on April 4, 2006 at 07:18 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
Twenty-seven percent is not encouraging especially when we note that this is the raw percentage - some of these nations could have become democracies absent the intervention so the true success rate is probably lower.
In fact, by this argument, the success rate could be negative.
Posted by: aram harrow at Apr 4, 2006 7:57:26 AM
Ahem; don't you think that the most populous democracy in the world might usefully be on the list? And if one took Nation building literally, what about Australia, NZ, Canada, even South Africa? How about the small Caribbean nations?
Posted by: dearieme at Apr 4, 2006 8:13:43 AM
Payne defines nation building as "the use of ground troops to support a deliberative effort to create a democracy."
Let's have a similar study on the kind of nation building Hilzoy is talking about over at Obsidian Wings:
When I ask myself which political unit has done the most to promote democracy since the fall of the Berlin wall, the answer seems clear: it's the European Union. The EU has helped immeasurably in the transformation of Eastern European countries into (mostly) functional democracies. Moreover, it is responsible for the one clear success story about democracy promotion in the Muslim world: the enormous changes that have occurred in Turkey over the last fifteen years or so.
Posted by: Noumenon at Apr 4, 2006 8:31:09 AM
Since WWII, the US is batting about 50%.
And why is South Korea considered a failure?
Posted by: Mike at Apr 4, 2006 8:31:48 AM
South Korea counts as a failure because when the US removed the bulk of its forces, it was still a dictatorship; it made its way to democracy only recently, and while US troops were present, they were not particularly involved.
Posted by: Grant Gould at Apr 4, 2006 8:42:47 AM
"Ahem; don't you think that the most populous democracy in the world might usefully be on the list?" says dearieme.
"Payne defines nation building as "the use of ground troops to support a deliberative effort to create a democracy," says Tyler.
dearieme, India is not on this list because Britain did not construct the nation of India through intentional actions. If anything, Britain was actively opposed to the emergence of an Indian nation. While it might be the case that India's fledgling democracy was helped by Britain--highly contentious and debatable--this post facto course of action fails the above definition. I'll leave you to apply a similar analysis to your other questions.
Posted by: Der Sucher Der Wahrheit at Apr 4, 2006 8:44:21 AM
Excuse me, I meant to credit Alex Tabarrok, not Tyler Cowen (sorry Alex).
Posted by: Der Sucher Der Wahrheit at Apr 4, 2006 8:46:00 AM
Japan was an economic success before US occupation. The "occidentalization" process was already launched in 1848 and after WWI Japan was considered (almost) an equal of western democracies...
So, in my opinion, after WWII, US "rebuild" Japan more than they actually "build" it. As a matter of fact, they used already existing administrative structures and so on to implement new laws etc. Never forget that Japan had already known a period of "democracy" - at least a Parliamentary System - in the 1920’s. Moreover, Japan was traumatized by the defeat (it is very well described in John Dower's "Embracing defeat" book), there was a kind of "passive acceptance" among Japanese people of the fact that they were "wrong" (and the USA "good"). They agreed to change.
In my opinion, this rebuilding process is therefore as much an American as a Japanese success.
And if you look at the list, you realize that West-Germany was in a similar situation: a former democracy (Weimar republic) with previous economic successes and a major defeat leading to a "mind shifting" (even greater in Germany than in Japan if you want my opinion). I think this kind of "background" may be one explanation in some of those "nation (re)building"'s successes...
PS: Excuse my poor English...
Posted by: Alex at Apr 4, 2006 8:56:27 AM
Three things about this study.
First, as mentioned above, some of the successes and failures are debatable (Japan and South Korea, for example).
Second, while I realize this is politcally incorrect to say, some of the failures are really backward nations. To build a nation, it seems you would need some raw materials.
Third, it can be argued that some of the attempts failed because the U.S. pulled out too quickly (Lebanon and Somalia).
Posted by: Ted Craig at Apr 4, 2006 9:21:14 AM
There is a big literature about whether or not foreign aid works; the evidence is mixed but it is hard to find a consistently positive effect in the data. Joseph Stiglitz has expressed the idea that this is because a lot of the "aid" wasn't really aid in the sense of money intended to help poor people, but rather was money intended to keep friendly dictators in power. If you threw these out of the sample, says Stiglitz, and retained only the instances where real aid was provided, you would find an effect.
I think something similar might be going on here. A lot of occupations on that list cannot really be counted as legitimate attempts to build democracy, but rather as attempts to achieve other ends in those countries. If you threw those out of the sample, you might find a much better batting average (although the sample would probably be pretty small).
Posted by: David J. Balan at Apr 4, 2006 10:10:20 AM
There is one important question left unanswered by the study. That is, did the U.S. want to built democracies? The three occupations in Nicaragua for instance, or take Cuba, were they meant to built democracies; or only to install U.S. friendly regimes? Because if the latter thing was the goal, the success rate could well be much much higher.
Posted by: ivan at Apr 4, 2006 10:40:41 AM
Oh sorry. I only see now that David also adressed the same issue.
Posted by: ivan at Apr 4, 2006 10:43:08 AM
Setting the bar at democracy is too high. That is the ideal, but a less than horrible and reasonably unaggressive dictatorship with some liberal tendencies may well be a practical and sensible goal especially if it advances interests in the region and forestalls much worse (e.g. communism). Taiwan and South Korea being excellent examples of where that path can lead.
Posted by: jn at Apr 4, 2006 10:44:29 AM
I've been thinking about that bit where then British put down wife-burning in India, as it relates to Afganistan, the Christian convert, and "nation building". As usual, sloppy thinking is a major problem.
1) Nation building does not necessarily require the significant use of troops. I'm thinking eastern Europe post-WWI. (And even Germany post WWI.)
2) While we can choose to focus on republics, the low success rate found suggests that a broader study might be more useful. I think of "nation building" as the establishment of a client state where there had either been no prior government, or where it had been rendered ineffective. I'm thinking about the Napoleonic states and Vichy France as being every bit as valid examples to consider (all failures) as the fun & games in Serbia (whenever).
By this definition, India definitely counts (as a failure, see below). South Korea does not. We never intended to build anything there except a bulkward against Soviet expansionism.
3) Success is still defined as the creation of a government which survives the withdrawal of the occupation forces (and where the government is mostly self-funded), but with the added requirement that the client state's policies remain harmonious with the founding country's for a period of time.
If you don't like my formulation of three, then you need to explain why precisely a nation should even consider dumping a lot of blood & treasure in a far off land if the success criteria is anything else. Nations don't have friends, they have interests.
I think that you will find that historically, "nation building" works much better for empires than for anyone else. If you want to reform a nation's political structure, as opposed to bending its foreign policy, you are going to have to occupy for a decade or decades. (Japan, Phillipines, Germany Post-II.) Anything less is throwing darts at a roulette wheel.
Republics are particularly tricky, both to set up, and to manage. First, you have to set up the basics. (Cultural demand for private property rights, due process (as opposed to private justice or show trials), free speech and elections; the view of government work as public servants;) You have to foster enough national sentiment for the various factions to want to have a unified government, but not so much that they resent your presence. Newspapers need to be free but supportive of your policies.
Good luck.
Posted by: Nathan Zook at Apr 4, 2006 11:20:13 AM
There's definitely some debate about what "nation building" means. As some of the commenters above indicated, most of those "interventions" were not intended to build free, happy, or democratic governments. For better or worse, they were designed to mitigate threats to the government sponsoring the intervention.
It's not really meaningful to complain that such occupations didn't create democracies when that wasn't their aim. From an amoral, Machiavellian perspective, we need to examine how successful these occupations were at their true goal -- preventing further threats to the US (or the UK). In that light, more of these experiments seem to be "successful."
The study is definitely very interesting though. More research would be fruitful. :)
Posted by: Caliban at Apr 4, 2006 12:05:36 PM
It could be still worse: some of the countries that didn't become democracies might have become democracies absent the intervention.
Posted by: Kevin Postlewaite at Apr 4, 2006 12:41:56 PM
I'm confused by the British examples. The vast majority of them are nothing more than the dates of British colonial administration of the territories in question, which territory's boundaries were defined by the British themselves. Disregarding the idea of building of a nation where there never was one, it is a stretch to imagine that the entirety of the British colonial period was an attempt to spread democracy. Even the hurried attempts to install successor governments as they retreated from the colonies can only be regarded as half hearted at best. Oddly enough the one colony in which Britain managed to install a functioning democracy: India, or at least the parts that are not now Pakistan or Bangladesh, is not on the list.
And I have no idea how the installation of yet another Latin American dictator: Dominican Republic 1965-1967, is scored as a success on the US' card.
Posted by: Ssezi at Apr 4, 2006 1:02:32 PM
It is historically false to claim that Britain *intended* to establish democracies in Africa until
the mid-50s at the earliest; it intended extractive colonies and in a few cases nice homes for British expats. These countries account for 15 of Payne's 52, and it seems to me that you can't fail at something you never try to do. Taking them out of the sample yields a success rate of 14 out of 37, which is 38%.
Posted by: Shroder at Apr 4, 2006 1:10:31 PM
I vaguely remember GWB in the 2000 campaign saying that he was against the notion of nation building. At the time I thought there would be relatively little difference between he and Gore winning the election.
Posted by: MjrMjr at Apr 4, 2006 1:23:21 PM
David suggests reasonably to adjust the universe and exclude cases where the United States intervened militarily for reasons other than nation building.
If we do that then we need to exclude Japan, Germany, and Austria. The US only intervened there to defend herself, not to install democracy.
Posted by: Hellmut Lotz at Apr 5, 2006 1:42:03 PM
The British did not intend nor implement any steps to install democracy. Indian democracy was built by Indians, not the British. Indians may have had inspiration from the democracy practiced in Britain, but that was the extent of the influence.
Posted by: JM at Apr 5, 2006 6:13:37 PM
Just to make sure we don't reinvent wheels, fight wind-mills (or less academically; put new shit in old wrappings) or anything: In political science, most notably Seymor Lipset and Stein Rokkan's classic works, "Nation building" really does not have anything to do with troops nor democracies. It means building a nation entity (including legitimacy of the ruling system of course) from the legal/violence monopolistic framework of a state. This wiki reflects that to an extent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_building.
The process before nation building, then, is state-building. This means ensuring that the state has a monopoly on use of violence within its territory, in the Weberian sense. Although nation and state-building probably have to be simultaneous, and the former probably is more difficult, Iraq needs state-building more than it needs nation building! And nonetheless it will not ease the theory-building to wrap new meanings into fruitful, meaningful and solid concepts..
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