Stabilization Lessons from the British Empire (Winter 2022/2023)

Failures of costly state-building missions in places like South Vietnam and Afghanistan have created a widespread belief that foreign interventions cannot stabilize fragile states. However, a review of the operational principles of British colonialism may offer some valuable lessons for how to successfully conduct state-building interventions. Before 1939, foreign interventions were regularly managed by a decentralized team of plenipotentiary agents who specialized in fostering local political development. Since 1945, however, international development assistance has generally worked with and through a recognized national government, implicitly supporting a centralization of power. The basic organizational principles of the British colonial district officers — who operated with decentralized political engagement — could be effectively applied in an international state-building agency for promoting accountable government in failed states that export violence and suffering. These principles are reviewed here, not to condone colonialism’s evils, but in order to understand how it was able to establish stable political order in so many different parts of the world.LBJ School of Public Affair