Content area
Full Text
Recent Books on International Relations
Political and Legal
G. John Ikenberry
State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century. by Francis Fukuyama. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004, 160 pp. $21.00.
Weak and failed states have always been a feature of the modern state system, but the West has typically either ignored them or engaged them as humanitarian crises. In a globalized age in which terrorism, crime, and disease know no boundaries, they have become a first-order international issue. In this short, sobering book, Fukuyama provides the most succinct and lucid consideration of this challenge yet to appear, and his message is not optimistic. Policy experts have vigorously debated the proper scope of the state, but there has been much less attention to the strength or capacity of the state-the government's ability to maintain law and order and protect property rights. Fukuyama thus notes the missteps and misunderstandings of the international development community, which has only recently embraced the obvious: that stable and well-functioning political institutions are a precondition for economic advancement. His more important argument, however, is that outside actors have little ability to help countries strengthen their state capacity-and often pursue policies that actually weaken political institutions. On the other hand, he suggests that, in some of the most severe cases, the only option is a return to a neocolonial or mandate system, but such steps clash with current global norms of sovereignty.
Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century. by Benjamin a. Valentino. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004, 336 pp. $29.95.
The twentieth century was the bloodiest in human history. Millions died in battle, of course, but even more-estimates range from 60 million to 150 million-were innocent victims of genocide and mass slaughter. In trying to make sense of such violence, scholars have tended to look within societies: at collective psychology, ethnic and racial hatred, and the character of government. In this astute and provocative study, Valentino argues instead that leaders, not societies, are to blame. In most cases, he finds that powerful leaders use mass killing to advance their own interests or indulge their own hatreds, rather than to carry out the desires of their constituencies. This "strategic" view emerges from a review of communist mass killing in...