Subcontracting State-Building

Abbey Steele, Jacob N. Shapiro
2017 Small Wars & Insurgencies  
Contemporary development assistance often takes the form of subcontracted statebuilding. Foreign donors hire for-profit firms to provide services and to improve or create institutions in developing countries, particularly those experiencing internal conflict. This arrangement creates two counterproductive dynamics: first, it introduces agency problems between donors, recipient states, subcontractors, and citizens; and second, it undermines the long-run development of domestic bureaucratic
more » ... ty by creating disincentives for the host government to invest. These dynamics hinder, rather than foster, the legitimacy of state institutions. This paper summarizes trends in external support to state-building since the 1970s and illustrates subcontracted state-building with examples from Colombia.
doi:10.1080/09592318.2017.1323408 fatcat:6u5tfauz7jb2zlkuxhnaelwaee