Description
Liberal international state-building has been a key approach to peace-building since the Cold War. However, these interventions have often fallen short of their objectives, with major failures seen in large-scale operations like in Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite this, US assistance in the emergence of Iraqi Kurdistan stands out as a successful example. While Iraq descended into chaos after the US withdrawal, Iraqi Kurdistan remained stable against challenges from Daesh. This raises the question: why was limited US state-building in Iraqi Kurdistan more successful than the second-largest state-building attempt in US history in Iraq?
To answer this question, I bridge the state formation – international state-building divide in research and draw on classical theories of state formation – bellicose and cooperative theories - to better understand the potential and pitfalls of external state-building interventions. While the USA failed at building a social coalition for state-building in Iraq, they managed to achieve this in Iraqi Kurdistan. I argue that the different types of incentives that external state-builders could offer to domestic actors, and the different modes of indirect governance structuring the relationship between interveners and domestic actors, explain why state-building in Iraq failed but succeeded in Iraqi Kurdistan.
