The Special Responsibility to Rebuild War-Torn Societies

In response to the key question, why should we reconstruct, a first answer emerges from the particular responsibilities associated with the use of force in international society. Much of the normative literature on war and intervention emphasizes the unforeseen consequences and collateral damage associated with the use of military means. Indeed, the rules of jus in bello can be viewed as an attempt to tame and regulate those means, and engender a strong ethic of responsibility in the individuals and organizations using them. Extending this reasoning, it can be argued that because military force has damaging and destabilizing effects on local people and institutions (even if there are also positive consequences, such as overthrowing a genocidal regime), there is a moral injunction on those choosing to engage in military action to stay and ensure that economic devastation and personal insecurity are ameliorated. “The work of the virtuous,” writes Walzer, “is never finished.”Footnote 10

The moral intuition underpinning this imperative is therefore about compensating for unintended consequences and ensuring the well-being of those affected by one's actions. The rationale operates both in wars of self-defense against aggressors and in wars of choice against regimes that are either engaging in extreme human rights violations or are threatening other members of international society. The compensation rationale has had particular purchase in the case of Iraq, where former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell allegedly invoked the motto, “You broke it, you own it.”Footnote 11 But the notion that foreign powers have a special responsibility to “fix” a country they have traumatized is also the logic driving Noah Feldman's argument that the rise of the insurgency, coupled with the impact of “de-Baathification,” left Iraq with a security vacuum that the United States had an obligation to fill:

Feldman's argument suggests that this special responsibility to rebuild will most often be invoked by those who actually waged the war. The reasoning is causal: the agent's current and prospective responsibilities for addressing dislocation and destruction flow from that same agent's historic role in bringing them about. Hence, the important link to make is that between conduct and outcomes—a link that is difficult to establish for purposes of attributing legal liability, but less so when assigning moral responsibility.

Notable, however, in contemporary international relations is the degree to which the responsibility to rebuild is also being invoked by actors who are not parties to the original conflict, including both states and international institutions. Over the past decade there have been unprecedented calls internationally to define the scope and form of duties not only to carry out humanitarian interventions but also to contribute to reconstruction in their aftermath. The independent International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), which issued its report in late 2001, argued that any military campaign designed to protect civilians from widespread suffering had to be seen in a broader context that included postwar reconstruction:

A number of Western countries have endorsed the commission's recommendations and made the “responsibility to protect” a key part of their foreign policy commitments. In his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly in 2004, then Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, for example, argued that national sovereignty in the twenty-first century increasingly encompasses responsibilities to global citizens. Martin set out five areas where Canada would seek to live up to those responsibilities in its diplomatic, defense, and development policy.Footnote 14

Despite the eagerness of states to embrace this responsibility (at least in their rhetoric), it is not clear why or under what circumstances those not involved in a conflict would contribute to cleaning up its aftermath. Given that there is currently no formal mechanism that assigns this “remedial responsibility”Footnote 15 to rebuild to particular agents, we need to look to general principles, such as historical ties between agents, special knowledge of the region in question, or superior capacity.Footnote 16 Historically, of course, arguments about superiority (largely defined in terms of race) were invoked to justify the involvement of European actors in the governance and (re)construction of “less civilized” societies. In the contemporary setting, some of the most influential special-responsibility justifications invoke bonds of culture and/or geography. For instance, the European Union references a shared identity in claiming a special duty to reconstruct war-torn territories in the Balkans.Footnote 17 The fulfilment of this special duty has arguably become even more important given the history of EU involvement in the region in the early 1990s, which was marked by a catastrophic failure to actually enact the assumed special responsibility. Thus, the European Union's current responsibility to rebuild in the Balkans stems from a dual source: perceived special duties vis- à-vis fellow Europeans, and the additional responsibility incurred by recent negligence in fulfilling those duties.

In other cases of reconstruction, where agents are acting outside their immediate geographical region or system of historical alliances, the rationale for the responsibility to rebuild invokes cosmopolitan rather than kinship principles. The cosmopolitan imperative seems to derive from two related sources: an appeal to common humanity and a responsibility to assist the vulnerable. In the first case, the responsibility to rebuild is a variation on the international harm principle: the conditions of war-torn territories threaten to rob people of their most basic human rights, thereby threatening all of humanity's values and interests.Footnote 18 In the second case, the responsibility is a manifestation of broader obligations to assist vulnerable individuals, even outside our particular nation-state. In the strong version of this second argument, our special obligations felt toward our co-nationals are taken to have blinded us to our further positive duties to assist strangers—especially those who are vulnerable to our actions and choices.Footnote 19 To reiterate, however, the responsibility of international actors under both the common humanity and the individual vulnerability logics is a remedial one: only when those with primary responsibility fail to act, or are deemed to be illegitimate, should members of international society step in.

The enlargement of the circle of responsibility for reconstruction beyond those parties to the original conflict raises difficult questions about how the burdens of rebuilding should be organized and shared, and how benefits might be distributed. As suggested earlier, whereas international law is reasonably clear about the obligations of occupying powers, it is less instructive as to what standards should guide the behavior of those who did not take part in the initial military action. Moreover, there is an argument—which we consider below—that insists that reconstruction should never be undertaken by those who waged the war, but only by an international institution with a claim to impartiality.

The Projection of Norms and Values

As a moral imperative, the argument that states should promote their domestic values in their foreign relations rests on two important assumptions shared with cosmopolitanism. The first is the moral equality of human beings, where the individual becomes the fundamental unit of analysis in world politics. On this assumption, sovereign borders may be understood as permeable to the degree that this enhances, or is perceived to enhance, the conditions of individuals. The second assumption is universality, which asserts that values such as freedom and self-government are universal rather than context-bound, and are thereby threatened “at home” if they are not safeguarded “abroad.”

In the case of postconflict reconstruction, the imperative to rebuild is driven by the belief on the part of some actors that they have a particular responsibility to promote these “universal” values. These outside actors need not have been involved in the conflict: the imperative to leverage the moment of transition can be exercised by any actor committed to the spread of these values, be it a state or institution.

This transformational rationale has significant implications for the principles called on to guide the reconstruction effort. Thus, whereas the first imperative is about compensating for damage done (in its narrower version) or protecting the vulnerable (in its broader version), the logic of the transformational argument suggests that actors engaged in reconstruction should seek to create particular structures of government: in short, a stable (liberal) democracy.

A variety of actors have sought to project democracy, human rights, and the rule of law internationally. Most obvious is the historical aspiration of the United States to be the “beacon” for oppressed societies—a sensibility that under the muscular foreign policy of the Bush administration was transformed into a “forward strategy of freedom.” The 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy, for example, casts democracy promotion abroad, including in the context of postconflict reconstruction, as the expression of a values-driven foreign policy. Throughout the document, realist principles of prudence are depicted as inconsistent with the interests and values of the United States, and incompatible with the country's identity as an international champion of freedom:

What is perhaps less appreciated is the degree to which values-projection also informs much of the European and Canadian approaches to foreign policy in general, and postconflict reconstruction in particular. The European Union, for example, has sought to define itself as a “normative power” on the international stage.Footnote 21 By virtue of its historical evolution—particularly its founding principles—the EU sees itself as having a special basis on which to fashion its policy, and has formally committed itself to placing these norms and principles at the center of its relations with its members, aspiring members, and the wider world.Footnote 22 In short, to be a “true European” is to assist others in constructing the same robust foundation for their society. In the words of the EU High Representative Javier Solana: “The aim of the European project is no longer to secure peace in Europe—for it has been secured. We must now…contribute to peace and stability in a globalised world.”Footnote 23

Consequently, one can detect in the EU discourse the view that the Union should play a greater role in postconflict reconstruction because it is the “right” kind of (normative) actor for the job and has the “right” kind of tools. The possession of certain abilities is thereby seen to carry with it obligations to the broader community. As one representative of the European Commission put it: “The EU's real strengths lie in the areas of development and humanitarian aid, reconstruction, conflict prevention, and crisis management. One could be so bold as to describe such a mix of tools as ideal for nation-building, a skill that should be in high demand.”Footnote 24 This notion that responsibilities flow from particular abilities also appears in Canadian foreign policy documents, where the country is frequently portrayed as having unique advantages that it should share with societies struggling to emerge from violence and poverty. As outlined in the 2005 International Policy Statement:

What unites these various justifications for extensive involvement in postconflict reconstruction is a belief that an actor's identity, shaped by a complex mix of historical, political, and cultural factors, helps to define its international agenda. While the promotion of values and norms remains a matter of choice or discretion, it is framed in public discourse as akin to a national or regional obligation—a function of “who we are.”

The Defense of Society

Recent times have witnessed a (re)definition of failed-state reconstruction as something fundamental to the pursuit of regional and international security, and thus as central to the long-term interest of those engaged in reconstruction. With failed states seen as a threat not only to the security of their own citizens but also to those living in “zones of peace,” it is arguably incumbent on members of such zones to help rebuild such societies in order to prevent them from becoming sources of instability or terrorism. In short, the third imperative to rebuild comes from a broader understanding of the national interest and the requirements of the “defense of society.”Footnote 26 This imperative appears to operate in a wide variety of postconflict situations, intrastate and interstate, and, again, applies to a variety of actors.

It is commonplace in the field of international relations to portray national interest arguments as void of ethical considerations. But, to the contrary, the idea that the responsibility of the statesman is to protect and further the national interest can be viewed as a deeply moral one. The classical notion of raison d’état asserts that state leaders occupy a particular role, are entrusted with the fate of their political community, and therefore are presented with a set of moral dilemmas that differ from those facing ordinary individuals.Footnote 27 The consummate realist, Hans Morgenthau, illuminated the possibilities for marrying a concern for morality with a dedication to the national interest. While he believed that the survival of a state—its territory, institutions, and culture—was the irreducible core of the national interest, he also recognized the multiplicity of goals that lie beyond this triad of concerns in the realm of diplomatic choice, which would require leaders to consider the moral values of those whom they represented.Footnote 28

The interest-based rationale for reconstruction has developed through two different phases. The first, which builds on Kantian ideas about democratic peace, became particularly influential in Western policy circles following the cold war, as the field of security was redefined to emphasize cultural (rather than strictly geostrategic) foundations of security. The reigning assumption was that the construction of good (liberal democratic) polities was the best guarantee of international stability.Footnote 29 While conventional dangers were declining, Western policy-makers saw a corresponding increase in the probability of a different, multifaceted, and difficult-to-contain risk. In the Euro-Atlantic world, the spotlight was on extant or potential domestic problems in failing and failed states in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union, as well as other problematic transitional countries. A consensus emerged that the promotion of liberal democratic norms and institutions within those states would be vital for the promotion of international security in the new era.Footnote 30 For example, with respect to the international administration in Kosovo, external actors set out to build a polity based on democratic values and structures, respect for human rights, and a market-based economy—principles that were repeatedly identified as the only normative foundation for stability, freedom, and progress.Footnote 31

While Kantian-inspired arguments about international democracy promotion continue to infuse the foreign-policy discourses of Western countries and some international organizations, the interest-based imperative for reconstruction has further developed with the felt need to defend both democratic and transitional societies from the threat of international terrorism. Following the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, the problem of unstable (particularly postconflict) states acquired new urgency, as such states came to be seen as likely hosts for terrorist movements and, as such, the source of a significant unconventional threat to international security. It thereby became especially important for international actors to contribute to postconflict reconstruction in order to minimize the potential breeding grounds for terrorism. In particular, from this perspective international actors engaged in reconstruction need to develop more effective ways to support progressive, peaceful groups in target societies, and to work with the local population to identify and defeat extremist factions.

This view is clearly expressed in both the 2002 and 2006 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) documents. The latter, for example, claims that the U.S. “commitment to the promotion of freedom is a commitment to walk alongside governments and their people as they make the difficult transition to effective democracies. We will not abandon them before the transition is secure because immature democracies can be prone to conflict and vulnerable to exploitation by terrorists.”Footnote 32 The 2006 NSS further states that it is particularly important to defeat extremist groups in failing and war-torn polities, for, in addition to undermining order in their own countries, these actors constitute a threat to democratic societies worldwide.

The defense-of-society imperative is also inscribed—albeit in more subdued tones—in the strategic documents of other actors, including the EU, Canada, NATO, and Russia. These texts identify the establishment of strong and stable (and, in the case of some, democratic) polities as an important source of international security and a tool in the fight against terrorism.Footnote 33 For instance, the European Security Strategy (ESS), adopted in December 2003, states that while “large scale aggression against any Member State is now improbable,” Europe faces new threats “which are more diverse, less visible, and less predictable.”Footnote 34 In light of this perceived threat, the ESS identifies state failure as both a direct threat (in that conflict, or at least refugees, might spill over national borders) and an indirect security risk, because of its potential to give rise to extremism and terrorism. On this basis, the document calls for expanded EU involvement in the reconstruction of failed states around norms of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Similarly, the comments of Indian officials on the establishment of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan illustrate a belief that the threat of terrorism imposes a responsibility for outsiders to create a stable country in the region:

Russia, too, has been more supportive of NATO and Western actions in Afghanistan than it was in the case of Kosovo—partially because of its own interest in counterterrorism. Joint statements issued by then presidents Putin and Bush indicate that there is a shared understanding of the responsibility to rebuild a stable Afghanistan, where the key imperative is a shared interest in defeating the “enemies of civilization.”Footnote 36

To sum up, the third imperative to rebuild privileges the need to protect one's own society from harm. Ironically, considering the version of this imperative advanced by the United States and the European Union, the defense of society does not require a commitment to the export of any political values in particular. One might argue, in fact, that democratic regimes complicate the task of counterterrorism, since open societies are constrained in their use of tools of surveillance and control. Regarding the defense-of-society logic, strictly speaking it is not unreasonable to argue that the goal of reconstruction should be the creation of “strong” states only, even if this means tolerating authoritarian impulses abroad. Further, it is interesting to note the significant difference between the first imperative discussed in this article, one version of which makes a priority of protecting vulnerable people in the war-torn territory, and the second, national interest imperative, in which the ultimate referent is the peacebuilder's own society. Should a conflict arise between the two goals, the defense-of-society imperative suggests that priority should be given to the latter.

Restoration of Self-Determination

A final ethical imperative driving reconstruction is the need to restore independence and self-determination to a political community denied such rights as a result of conflict or external interference. Here, the responsibility to rebuild derives not from the use of force, or from a state's values or interests, but from a commitment to a pluralist world of independent states. In its strongest formulation, this position holds that the moral equality of individuals is secondary to the moral equality of states. We should respect sovereign states because of the shield they construct around diverse and self-determining communities.Footnote 37 The logic of this imperative suggests that those engaged in reconstruction should prioritize the restoration of self-governance to the war-torn country, and should avoid projecting their particular vision of good governance. Counseling restraint in statebuilding, Gary Bass, for instance, asks, “What right does one have to impose one's political or cultural values on a conquered country? The mere fact of military victory is hardly a demonstration of superior political organization or cultural values. In a world with many divergent cultures, the mission civilisatrice must be construed as narrowly as possible.”Footnote 38

For actors who were party to the original conflict, the restoration of self-determination is often depicted as a key marker of successful reconstruction—rather than as the logic motivating the mission. But for states that become engaged only after the cessation of formal hostilities, the recreation of a self-determining unit can be the driving imperative behind their participation. This rationale has been a central feature of Chinese foreign policy. Prior to one of the United Nations' first comprehensive peacebuilding efforts, the UN Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC, 1992–1993), Chinese officials emphasized the importance of restoring Cambodia's autonomy and independence as quickly as possible, and limiting the intrusiveness of the international community.Footnote 39 Similarly, China insisted that while those involved in the UN Transitional Authority in East Timor (UNTAET, 1999–2002) bore special responsibility and obligations toward this territory, their presence was ultimately directed at assisting “that island's people to achieve independence and self-reliance.”Footnote 40 As such, continued consultation with and involvement of the local population was a key operating principle for the transitional administration. This insistence that any international plan for reconstruction be driven by a concern for the target state's sovereignty and independence has also been a frequent theme of Chinese comments on Afghanistan.Footnote 41 Indeed, Chinese contributions within the Security Council to general debates about the UN's role in peacebuilding and national reconciliation consistently insist that local actors must lead the process, with international actors playing a supporting role.Footnote 42

There are two concluding points to make about the four imperatives for reconstruction outlined above. First, actors obviously often appeal to more than one imperative. The 2006 NSS, for example, combines the aspiration for democracy promotion with a strong defense-of-society argument. Second, all but the first of the imperatives are based on an assumption about what kind of “space” is to be fashioned by reconstruction—namely, a stable, sovereign state. This is a deeply normative judgement, driven by the belief that the state remains the best way to bring about security (for territory, regime, and individuals) and, in the case of our second imperative, to protect liberal values. Yet, this state-centric discourse exists alongside a discourse about globalization, which, after the cold war, appeared to gain the upper hand over more traditional conceptions of world politics. In other words, in the realm of postconflict reconstruction, the normative assumptions of actors about what is ultimately good and desirable have in many ways reaffirmed the principles that guided international relations following the Second World War: national self-determination and sovereign equality. This traditionalism sits uneasily with the cosmopolitan arguments for reconstruction advanced by actors such as Canada and the European Union.

The case of Kosovo provides an apt illustration of the ongoing centrality of sovereignty to the international community's approach to peacebuilding. Kosovo was initially subject to the so-called “standards before status” policy, suggesting an international commitment to deprioritize sovereignty relative to other values, such as minority rights. However, following the breakdown of UN-sponsored negotiations regarding the territory's future, the Kosovar leadership unilaterally declared independence, and Kosovo was granted recognition as an independent state by a significant number of countries—primarily though not exclusively Western.

Such reaffirmations of the state have been viewed as regressive by cosmopolitan scholars and practitioners, who would instead prioritize basic rights on a global scale. The state-centric approach is seen by cosmopolitans as underpinned by a moral hierarchy between insiders and outsiders, citizens and strangers, which gives preferential treatment to members of one's own political community. Arguably, the practical and normative privileging of the state leads international actors involved in postconflict reconstruction to marginalize or overlook questions about the inability or unwillingness of some states to protect and provide for their citizens.

Collective Responsibility and Legitimacy

The first rationale for reconstruction emerges from the particular responsibilities of those who use military force. Where reconstruction occurs in the aftermath of an international military intervention, the logic of “you broke it, you own it” would seem to indicate that the responsibility to rebuild rests mainly with those directly involved in the military campaign. But it is far from clear that this application of causal responsibility is desirable. As moral philosophers have shown, backward-looking ideas of causal responsibility relate imperfectly to the forward-looking task of addressing a problem, since the actor who caused another actor to be in danger is not always best placed to rectify the situation. As Henry Shue reasons, the more important question is, Who is in a position to act?Footnote 43 Causal responsibility and role responsibility are two different ideas, and merge only when those in a position to cause disruption and harm are also the best placed to provide help.

This latter situation is rare, but perhaps relatively common in instances of war and peace compared to circumstances within domestic society. Yet even in war, it is not obvious that the responsibility for the aftermath should fall to those who caused the disruption. Indeed, it could be argued that the users of force should not be regarded as legitimate participants in reconstruction. When we turn to evaluate the responsibility of those not party to the original conflict, a related set of issues presents itself. Consider, for example, the argument that those with special ties or proximity to the target state should bear a special responsibility to rebuild: it is not clear that countries with special bonds to a war-torn society will have sufficient means and legitimacy to make a positive contribution to reconstruction. For instance, anecdotal evidence suggests that many Kosovars remain suspicious of the motives and likely effectiveness of EU peacebuilding, and place greater trust in arrangements and practices that involve at least some U.S. participation.

Given such difficulties, it is common to find arguments in defense of multilateralism that posit that the legitimacy of an action can be enhanced if it is controlled not by particular states—especially those with high stakes in the intervention (or, in our case, the reconstruction effort)—but by a collective of states or an international organization.Footnote 44 But this raises two further questions: first, is the United Nations the kind of collective agent that can bear this responsibility; and, second, if it is not, how should the responsibility to rebuild be distributed among members of international society?

The first question parallels the debate about which actors should carry out humanitarian intervention, and remains controversial in both academic and policy circles. It might seem reasonable to argue that, as the only international organization with universal membership, the UN would be the most disinterested candidate for the role of lead organization in postconflict reconstruction, and therefore the organization most likely to be regarded as an acceptable participant by most, if not all, parties in war-torn territories. But there are two kinds of problems with attributing responsibility to the UN in this way. One problem, noted by Toni Erskine, is that the organization's capacity for purposive action is extremely limited. It is difficult to conceive of the United Nations as a “moral entity” that can bear both the responsibility to act and the blame for not acting. Erskine argues that failure to address the question of which actors can actually discharge responsibilities often burdens those entities that are not true agents (such as the notoriously vague “international community”) or agents not capable of acting in certain circumstances (such as the United Nations) “with duties that they cannot discharge, while leaving more appropriate actors overlooked,” or “off the hook.”Footnote 45

Beyond these questions of responsibility are broader arguments about the legitimacy of the United Nations—and particularly the Security Council—in international society. The body responsible for authorizing interventions and mandating postconflict reconstruction is accused by many observers of suffering from a legitimacy deficit: its deliberations lack transparency, its decisions are largely unaccountable, and its structure both underrepresents key constituencies and formalizes a privileged position for five of international society's most powerful members.Footnote 46

In parallel to these questions of responsibility and legitimacy, the United Nations also faces practical criticisms regarding the effectiveness of its peacebuilding operations. The organization and its defenders experienced a moment of hope in 2005 with the creation of the Peacebuilding Commission (PBC), set up in response to a growing need to systematize postconflict reconstruction activities. But the PBC in its current form is unlikely to fill the effectiveness gap: it has a large and, some would say, unwieldy membership—with 31 members on the Organizational Committee—and is limited to an advisory role. In addition, the PBC has not been established as an organ of the Security Council alone, but rather of both the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), leaving reporting lines murky. As a body without any real authority, it is unclear that the PBC can significantly improve the planning, coordination, and monitoring of UN peacebuilding.

This is not to argue that the United Nations cannot and should not play the lead role at least in some reconstruction efforts. Regional organizations, and especially intervening states or coalitions, are likely to have high stakes in reconstruction efforts and may be viewed by at least some of the parties in war-torn territories as biased, and potentially even as neocolonialists. In other words, neither proximity nor causation can be used as a trump to determine who should bear responsibility. Moreover, any ethical framework for thinking about who/what should bear the burdens of reconstruction needs to consider the present allocation of responsibility in international society. As Robert Goodin argues, this pragmatic injunction does not assume the existing allocation is morally superior to any potential alternative; it simply recognizes that current arrangements have acquired the status of a social fact, and therefore to some extent guide the expectations and actions of both the vulnerable and those who are in a position to help.Footnote 47 Nonetheless, if collective responsibility is to be fulfilled by the UN system, more attention needs to be paid to how the Security Council can be made more transparent and accountable, including to those experiencing postwar reconstruction.

Let us turn now to the more cosmopolitan arguments for special responsibility invoked by parties without an obvious stake in the reconstruction outcome. The notion of the responsibility to protect and rebuild, as articulated in the ICISS report, seems on the surface to point to a strong duty on the part of the international community to act. Yet, in practice, we are left with an incomplete moral picture of how remedial responsibility is meant to operate, given that it is unclear which specific agent(s) is designated to take the lead.Footnote 48 This ambiguity in the distribution of responsibility has two potential effects. First, it often leads to a diffusion of responsibility, making it easier for states and international organizations to shirk their obligations. This danger is particularly acute in the current context, since the costs in political, material, and human resources of intervening and rebuilding can be especially high. Second, there is a duty of protection asserted, but no corresponding liability for a failure to protect.Footnote 49 The result is not only unfulfilled expectations but also the absence of mechanisms for holding the international community responsible should it not exert its remedial role. To have true remedial responsibility, as David Miller reminds us, is to have a particular duty to put the wrong right: to be designated to carry a responsibility that is not shared equally among all.Footnote 50

The Perils of Democracy Promotion

The second imperative, which seeks to recreate societies in the image of one's own, encounters a familiar set of objections raised by both theory and practice. Liberal political thinkers have long argued that freedom and democracy cannot be imposed by outside actors, and that the only way to establish viable, stable democratic arrangements in a society is through independent processes of development, leading, through education and experience, to the triumph of reason and of principles and norms that foster democratic governance.Footnote 51 Indeed, international actors involved in postconflict reconstruction often try to paint a picture of domestic ownership of internationally prescribed reforms. For the most part, however, the focus on recipient country ownership amounts to an effort to persuade or incentivize the leaders and populations of war-torn territories to accept international prescriptions, and in many cases to marginalize those local actors seen as opposed to the international reconstruction agenda.Footnote 52 Thus, the ability of local actors to act as free political agents in postconflict reconstruction efforts tends to be severely constrained.

As Robert Jackson and Will Bain argue, any form of trusteeship—even if short-term or designed merely to redress the effects of conflict—sets up a dangerously paternalistic relationship that flouts one of the core principles of modern international society: sovereign equality.Footnote 53 Analysis of recent experience reveals that those engaged in postconflict reconstruction find the goal of “state building without paternalism” difficult to achieve. The ICISS report draws attention to the fact that an international administration can have adverse as well as beneficial consequences:

This potential for dependency and distortion suggests that any ethical framework for evaluating reconstruction must take a critical stance toward the notion of trusteeship, and set out specific guidelines for ensuring accountability for the behavior and policies of international actors.

The injunction against external democracy promotion can also be viewed from a different angle. In the context of postconflict reconstruction, the rights of local people can be negatively affected by the tendency of international actors to distort processes of growth that traditionally played important roles in the establishment of their own democracies. Mohammed Ayoob, for instance, suggests that modern European democratization might have been less successful if Europeans had been subject to the kinds of international pressures to adopt particular norms that are today applied to postconflict states. As he puts it, “One wonders if West European and North American states would have successfully completed their state-building endeavours and eventually emerged as liberal, democratic states, if they had the UN Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, and now the UNSC breathing down their necks during the crucial early phases of their state making endeavours.”Footnote 55 Ayoob can be accused of taking this argument a step too far by suggesting that developing states should be allowed to employ all means deemed necessary to complete their own statebuilding processes and ensure domestic order. The international legal regime on human rights suggests that it is no longer acceptable to tolerate certain kinds of state action, such as massive human rights violations, in the name of allowing developing states to consolidate state structures their own way. Nevertheless, this line of argument is important in spurring more thinking as to how international actors engaged in reconstruction can avoid contributing to counterproductive developments in war-torn countries.

In our view, there is a further normative problem associated with the second imperative for reconstruction. Specifically, the belief on the part of international actors that they are acting in the name of universal values can lead them to perceive all opposition to their efforts as coming from anti-democratic forces, and thus to stigmatize such opposition and misinterpret the complex politics of postconflict reconstruction. This can be seen as just one consequence of a moral disposition described by Michael Oakeshott as the self-conscious pursuit of an ideal involving an effort to align the world as it is with how it should be Footnote 56—even if, in the context of reconstruction, this means the destruction of arrangements that might promote stability, or that might be seen as legitimate by the local population.

The Consequences of Mixed Motives

The defense-of-society imperative can appear, on first glance, to offer a strong rationale for reconstruction, and one likely to escape charges of paternalism or hypocrisy. From this perspective, there is nothing wrong with a scenario in which international actors become involved in the reconstruction of war-shattered states for reasons that include self-interest. Indeed, it is unrealistic to expect states to become involved in expensive, protracted, and dangerous missions purely out of a sense of duty to protect the vulnerable. As Feldman contends, while a nation's interest in, for instance, preventing foreign territories from falling into lawlessness is often what motivates statebuilding, this fact does not doom such action to immorality. A normative standard that requires us to define our objectives solely in terms of others' interests sets too high a bar in the context of international action. “It should be sufficient,” he writes, “if our objectives coincide with the interests of other peoples and nations, and if we adopt appropriate means to achieve them.”Footnote 57

Yet the insertion of self-interest into the equation complicates matters to a greater extent than Feldman's argument suggests. To begin, in a situation such as postconflict reconstruction in which the definition of national interest is subject to complex political processes, there is always a danger of inconsistency on the part of actors as their domestic situations and priorities change. The problematic implications of making decisions regarding the level and nature of reconstruction efforts on the basis of narrow strategic interests can be seen in practice in Afghanistan. Many security experts agree that some of the problems faced by the international mission in Afghanistan can be traced back to the Bush administration's decision to divert its attention and resources to Iraq.Footnote 58 Thus, many of the promises of substantial aid to the fledgling Afghan government were left unfulfilled, complicating the process of reconstruction—not least by undermining local support for and trust in the international mission, and apparently leading many ordinary Afghans to align with the Taliban.

In general, when reconstruction is partially justified by reference to the particular interests of the states or groups carrying it out, there is a danger that the standards against which postconflict reconstruction is held may be lowered. For one thing, the priorities and aims of the international actors can be falsely assumed to coincide with those of local actors.Footnote 59 Yet in Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, the nature and level of stability required to keep these states from becoming “breeding grounds for international terrorism” almost certainly do not correspond to what would be required to secure the basic security and well-being of Iraqi and Afghan civilians. The securitization of postconflict reconstruction, without factoring in the perspective of the local population, can thus lead to a problematic (re)definition of priorities in ways that compromise the promotion of democracy and human rights and increase the potential for conflict to re-emerge.

The accountability deficit that has marked recent postconflict reconstruction efforts can thereby be dramatically exacerbated, justified by reference to the “vital security interests” of powerful states and an expansive definition of self-defense. This dynamic has potential to generate further criticisms of and challenges to the legitimacy of postconflict reconstruction missions, and might tempt substantial sections of the international community, particularly in the developing world, into principled opposition to reconstruction. That would make it even more difficult to generate international support for postconflict missions, leaving a series of states trapped in a condition of instability and underdevelopment.

Defining the Target of Reconstruction

The final imperative for reconstruction—the desire to create a self-determining unit—encounters a different kind of dilemma, which arises from the nature and foundations of the targeted area. It is tempting, particularly for those accustomed to mainstream conceptions of sovereignty, to think about the territories being reconstructed as clearly defined, cohesive (or potentially cohesive) entities, with stable boundaries. Moreover, some of the most influential writings in international normative theory, such as by Rawls or Walzer, take as their starting point the sovereign state as a coherent, self-determining unit; in the case of Walzer, it is the presumption of the state as the conduit for and protector of self-determination that gives it its moral standing in world politics.

Yet in many instances of postconflict reconstruction the situation is more ambiguous, making it difficult for independence and self-determination to be (re)asserted. Societies emerging from conflict are often profoundly affected by developments in neighboring states, as well as by the actions of substate and transnational networks. Societies may thus become locked into a situation of domestic fragmentation exacerbated by regional politics and substate tensions. In seeking to establish self-determining entities, international actors might actually contribute to regional instability and/or a renewal of domestic violence, notably against ethnic and religious minorities. In a broader normative perspective, this raises two conceptual questions: (1) who or what should be taken as the relevant unit of analysis in normative theorizing about reconstruction (the individual, the ethnic group, the state, or the region)?; and (2) should national unity always be the desired objective of political reconstruction?

Theorists and practitioners of reconstruction often end up supporting the state (implicitly if not explicitly) as the most important unit for theorizing and enacting reconstruction. Nonetheless, such arguments and actions do not adequately address the criticism that, far from being the protective “shell” for self-determination, states are in many cases the primary source of insecurity for (at least some of) their citizens and ethnic and religious groups. Furthermore, this approach underestimates the extent to which individuals are affected by socioeconomic and political developments that occur beyond the borders of their state.

But let us assume for the sake of argument that the state should be seen as the most appropriate unit in approaching the topic of reconstruction. The problem that remains is that it is unclear whether international actors understand what it takes to promote national unity, including the issue of whether such a project should be taken on by outsiders at all. Recent experience certainly suggests that the international community has underestimated the problem of domestic fragmentation and its impact on reconstruction in a number of regions.Footnote 60 This difficulty applies not only to processes of constructing new states, as in Kosovo, but also to efforts to build up states such as Afghanistan, which might have long existed on the map but—due to domestic fragmentation and the persistence of substate and transnational power structures—never really functioned as coherent countries.

As regional experts remind us, local elites (for example, tribal leaders and warlords) have acquired significant power in the course of recent conflicts.Footnote 61 Whereas it seems reasonable to argue that these powerful local elites need to be brought into the postconflict institutional arrangements and brought in line with the norms of the new political order, the process can be seriously complicated by the actions of international peacebuilders. The efforts of governments and incipient and fragile new state apparatuses to pacify and integrate local elites have been hampered by international initiatives designed to co-opt “friendly” local leaders to secure their support for the international stabilization and reconstruction program. In Afghanistan, for example, as part of the search for cheap solutions by Western countries, some internationally prescribed stabilization activities were outsourced to local leaders and warlords. The idea, as Nick Grono explains, was that even if those individuals were “bad people,” at least they were “our bad people,” and could be expected to help implement the changes prescribed by international actors. This consequentialist mentality has had counterproductive and even perverse effects, with some local elites using the unconditional support of external actors to entrench themselves in their old fiefdoms, promptly reverting to their former practices of human rights abuse, corruption, drug production, and violence.Footnote 62 In addition, they have often used their new power to obstruct attempts by the central Afghan government to extend its control in the country.

Even where international actors do recognize the challenges associated with domestic fragmentation, it is not clear that they can address those challenges in a way that is perceived as legitimate by the citizens of war-torn territories. In some ways, this is a catch-22 situation. By fueling domestic fragmentation, international actors significantly complicate the process of building coherent, self-determining states. However, should they try instead to support viable, stable, self-determining units, they would probably encounter an equally difficult normative dilemma in that, given the nature and extent of fragmentation that persists in some war-torn territories, international peacebuilders would have to support the establishment of a strong, potentially authoritarian state. The question is, how could such a state be legitimized? The Hobbesian Leviathan's legitimacy rests on a contract among individuals. But citizens of a war-torn territory under international administration may find themselves subject to a form of coercion—established with the aid of international actors—to which they have not given their consent.