Institution Building in Weak States. Andrew Radin
Elite outbidding also can create an elite consensus that makes it difficult for foreign actors to find popular elites who support the reform. For example, in the case of the Shia in Iraq (discussed in chapter 3), an elite boycott emerged in which the leading Shia officials refused to accept the CPA’s demands, and the CPA was forced to compromise. Absent a threat to nationalist goals, elites can still make statements or use their networks to organize small demonstrations, as discussed in the next section on patron-client networks. Small-scale demonstrations or elite objections that are not supported by public opinion are unlikely to be compelling to foreign reformers.
Public opinion can therefore be an important indicator of whether elite objections or mass demonstrations are indeed motivated by popular opposition to the reform effort. Hence, when reform threatens a group’s nationalist goals, public opinion within the group toward the mission or reform is expected to decline (Hypothesis 1B).
The occurrence or even potential for widespread and recurring public opposition can persuade foreign reformers to weaken or abandon reform through at least two different mechanisms. First, elite objections can convince foreign actors that if they persist with their demands or recommendations, the state institution they seek to reform will not be effective or legitimate (Hypothesis 1C). In the face of widespread elite objections, especially an elite boycott, foreign reformers may come to believe that few if any credible elites participate in the state institutions that the foreign actor seeks to create. Mass opinion plays a role in determining which elites are credible and in convincing interveners that an elite opposition is indeed representative of their views. To ensure the effectiveness and accountability of the state institutions they seek to build, foreign actors may decide to reconsider their demands or recommendations to encourage popular elites to participate in government, as occurred in Iraq following the Shia elite boycott in 2003.
Second, widespread and recurring mass demonstrations show foreign actors that continuing with the reform effort is incompatible with norms underpinning the intervention (Hypothesis 1D). As discussed earlier, Western interveners subscribe to liberal norms, including popular sovereignty, which is the idea that the citizens of a country should select and hold accountable those who rule the country.32 In the face of widespread and recurring mass demonstrations, foreign actors who believe in liberal norms therefore face facts that are incompatible with their beliefs—in other words, cognitive dissonance.33 The theory expects that foreign officials can resolve their cognitive dissonance only by abandoning or reformulating the demands or recommendations that are provoking public opposition. In Kosovo, for example, as discussed in chapter 3, riots in 2004 convinced UN officials that their demands were not achievable, and the UN was forced to alter its demands to accommodate Kosovar Albanian concerns.
Nationalist goals can shape reform even when foreign actors do not actually make demands threatening these goals. As they develop and articulate their demands or recommendations, foreign actors may sense that their desired changes will trigger public opposition and adjust them accordingly (Hypothesis 1E). The absence of foreign demands or recommendations threatening nationalist goals therefore does not necessarily imply that nationalist goals are not important in shaping the outcome for foreign-supported reform.
The failure of reform due to public opposition is damaging in several ways. First, failed reform wastes the limited time and resources available to foreign interveners. Second, failure in the face of public opposition makes future reform more difficult. When foreign actors yield to public opposition and reduce their demands or recommendations, domestic elites may come to believe that interveners are not as committed to reform as they originally perceived. Everything else being equal, elites may therefore become more inclined to oppose foreign-supported reform. Indeed, the 2004 riots in Kosovo and public opposition to police reform in Bosnia from 2004 to 2007 reduced local perceptions of the credibility of the international community and thereby hurt the prospects for future reform, as detailed in chapters 3 and 5. Third, when public opposition makes foreign actors reformulate their desired changes, they may select new demands or recommendations that cause long-term problems for the society. For example, in Iraq, after the CPA was forced to accelerate its time line for elections in the face of public opposition, it selected a simple single-district electoral system rather than an electoral system designed to account for Iraq’s complex ethnic balance. This decision undermined Sunni support for future elections.34
Nationalist goals play a powerful role in the politics of many societies where foreign actors pursue reform. This makes reforms threatening nationalist goals particularly unproductive because they provoke damaging domestic opposition. It is relatively rare for foreign actors to seek changes that threaten nationalist goals and thereby provoke public opposition, in part because foreign actors recognize the likely consequences. It may also be more common for foreign reformers with significant resources and influence to make demands that threaten nationalist goals than lower-resourced missions. Still, the potential for damaging public opposition makes it important to understand what happens when reform threatens nationalist goals.
PATRON-CLIENT NETWORKS
Patron-client networks refer to personal links between the ruling political elite and their lower-status clients, who may include officials in the government or other citizens in the society who support elites. In these networks elites provide resources or protection for clients, and clients reciprocate with support and assistance.35 Patrimonialism, the logic of governance associated with patron-client networks, operates under a fundamentally different, personalist logic from the rational-bureaucratic, Western-style state institutions that foreign actors typically seek to build.36 Foreign actors thus often select demands or recommendations that threaten the ruling elites’ patron-client networks. Ruling elites have both a strong incentive to obstruct reforms that threaten these networks and the ability to use these same networks to privately oppose reform.
Patron-client networks can play a dominant role in societies where foreign actors pursue reforms for at least two reasons. First, patrimonialism represents a baseline form of government. Scholars of political development trace patrimonialism far back in human history. They differentiate between the historically dominant patronage-based political orders, referred to as “limited-access orders” or “extractive political institutions,” and the modern, democratic political institutions that foreign actors seek to replicate in many societies.37 However, since patron-client networks appear to remain present in all societies to some degree, it may make sense to distinguish a continuum of the political influence of patronage, ranging from “neopatrimonial societies,” where patrimonialism “is the core feature of politics”; to societies with some degree of democratic practice but where patronage remains important (e.g., Russia); to liberal democracies such as the Nordic states where personal patronage plays a much smaller role.38
Second, war and violence often facilitate the development of persistent patron-client networks, often associated with criminality or corruption, which transition into the postwar period. Paul Staniland notes that only insurgent groups with strong networks—including links between urban and rural areas, and connections between political leaders and military cadres—are likely to be successful in fighting and winning civil wars.39 One reason such networks are important is that the groups that fight civil wars need revenue, and their networks are often developed in part to conduct illicit economic activities—such as smuggling drugs, cigarettes, or oil—to fund their operations.40 When the war ends, the groups or organizations who fought the war often are encouraged to cease their illegal activities and transition to political parties with broad bases of support. Nevertheless, the networks and patron-client systems that developed during war typically carry over to the postwar period.41 Political leaders often emerge from leaders of the warring groups and draw on political and economic networks from the war and prewar period.42 The bonds between the leaders of the movement and the fighters are not easily broken or substituted, and leaders may retain an obligation to provide patronage to veterans.43
There are at least