Chair: Nils Petter Gleditsch
Discussant: Scott Gates
Venue: PRIO, Fuglehauggt. 11
James Fearon's abstract for the lecture:
The remarkable spread of persistent civil war in the poorest countries of the world has had little to do with ethnic demographics, religious hatreds, economic inequality, dependence on primary commodity exports, or even absence of political rights. Instead, it mainly reflects the success of a set of military techniques - rural guerrilla warfare - in countries whose state administrative and police capabilities are weak and underdeveloped. Peacekeeping operations to civil war-torn countries with low state capabilities will fail unless "peacekeeping" becomes successful state building. The relevant major powers and international institutions have not come to grips with this problem, and the current system does not provide adequate resources for peacekeeping operations. Since, in many countries, peacekeeping and state building are prerequisites for economic development, development aid should be allowed to flow to peacekeeping operations in the form of loans to be repaid as the country's economy recovers. James Fearon is one of the leading younger scholars within US political science.