The Bifurcation of the Two Worlds: assessing the gap between internationals and locals in state-building processes

Nicolas Lemay-Hébert

Third World Quarterly, 2011, vol. 32, issue 10, 1823-1841

Abstract: Studies increasingly highlight the limits of state building conducted ‘from the top-down’. Building on the literature and using a Rosenauian concept in a novel way, this article posits that international interventions create a ‘bifurcation of the two worlds’. Departing from a study of Kosovo and Timor-Leste, the article posits that the massive arrival of staff involved in international governance will create a social gap between the international and the local ‘worlds’, which will in turn become a target of narratives of resistance by local actors. This bifurcation is exemplified by the ‘white car syndrome’, a concept representing the horde of white UN vehicles accompanying major interventions and developed in this contribution. Thus, the article attempts to shed new light on the legitimacy crises that Kosovo and Timor-Leste experienced at the beginning of the current century, while demonstrating and increasing the linkages between development studies and peace studies.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01436597.2011.610578 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:32:y:2011:i:10:p:1823-1841

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ctwq20

DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2011.610578

Access Statistics for this article

Third World Quarterly is currently edited by Shahid Qadir

More articles in Third World Quarterly from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().