In the crisis regions of the South there is a clear link between violence/the violent conduct of conflict and the performance of states, be they ‘weak’ states that cannot control violence in their territory, or ‘strong’ states that exert violence on a large scale towards (parts of) their own populace or neighbours. In order to analyse and understand as well as to manage this phenomenon, an academic discourse and a political strategy have developed over the last years that put ‘state failure’ at the centre of the analysis of the causes of violent conflict, focussing subsequently on ‘state building’ (or even ‘nation-building’) as the main element of conflict prevention and peace building.
ACPACS is currently elaborating a proposal for a research project that aims to challenge the ‘state failure’ discourse that is currently so popular in research and policy as well as the practical political fall-out of that discourse, namely the promotion of conventional ‘state building’ as the avenue for the control of violence and for peace building. Alternative explanations for, and assessments of, the current status of statehood in the South and the related causes and forms of violent conflict will be presented as will alternative non-state-centric approaches to the control of violence and peace building. To these ends, the issue of ‘state and violence’ in selected regions of several states will be compared on the basis of an analysis of the state-society interface under conditions of ‘incomplete’ statehood.
The regional focus will be on Southeast Asia and the Pacific. Case studies will be conducted on the Solomon Islands, East Timor, and Bougainville, Australia etc. The project has both analytical and practical purposes and will significantly assist agencies working with peace building, governance and conflict prevention in Asia and the Pacific and other regions of the South.