The effort to improve state institutions in post-conflict societies is a complicated business. Even when foreign intervention is carried out with the best of intentions and the greatest resources, it often fails. What can account for this failure? In Institution Building in Weak States, Andrew Radin argues that the international community’s approach to building state institutions needs its own reform. This innovative book proposes a new strategy, rooted in a rigorous analysis of recent missions. In contrast to the common strategy of foreign interveners—imposing models drawn from Western countries—Radin shows how pursuing incremental change that accommodates local political interests is more likely to produce effective, accountable, and law-abiding institutions. Drawing on extensive field research and original interviews, Radin examines efforts to reform the central government, military, and police in post-conflict Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Iraq, and Timor-Leste. Based on his own experience in defense reform in Ukraine after 2014, Radin also draws parallels with efforts to improve state institutions outside of post-conflict societies. Institution Building in Weak States introduces a domestic opposition theory that better explains why institution building fails and what is required to make it work. With actionable recommendations for smarter policy, the book offers an important corrective for scholars and practitioners of post-conflict missions, international development, peacebuilding, and security cooperation.

This selection from Max Weber's writings presents his variegated work from one central focus, the relationship between charisma on the one hand, and the process of institution building in the major fields of the social order such as politics, law, economy, and culture and religion on the other. That the concept of charisma is crucially important for understanding the processes of institution building is implicit in Weber's own writings, and the explication of this relationship is perhaps the most important challenge which Weber's work poses for modern sociology. Max Weber on Charisma and Institution Building is a volume in "The Heritage of Sociology," a series edited by Morris Janowitz. Other volumes deal with the writings of George Herbert Mead, William F. Ogburn, Louis Wirth, W. I. Thomas, Robert E. Park, and the Scottish Moralists—Adam Smith, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, and others.

This book presents a study that conceptualizes, tests, and practically applies the spatial strategy for the European Kunsthalle. The investigation is the result of the activities incorporated into a two-year work practice from 2005 to 2007, an iterative "applied research" informed by resonances between theory and practice. The developed approach attempts to constructively question ideas of "stability" and "instability" and--in doing so--proposes a specific strategy for the European Kunsthalle that positions it within a local, regional, national and international contemporary discourse. Nikolaus Hirsch, Philipp Misselwitz, Markus Miessen, and Matthias Görlich have developed three spatial strategies: an unstable configuration, a stable strategy as well as a model that consolidates the potentials of both variants towards a, albeit slowly, growing institution. The proposal acts as a laboratory that plans a collective structure consisting of individual components. It results in a network of possible spatial options stemming from programmatic modules and leads to numerous possible spatial configurations. This alternative institution is a showcase of a growing phenomenon problematizing the relationship between authorship and institution. As time spans of exhibitions become shorter and programs become more differentiated, architecture in itself becomes exhibition--renegotiating the default role models of artists and architects. Contributors Shumon Basar, Andrea Phillips, and Jan Verwoert

Much writing on politics in Asia revolves around the themes of democracy and democratisation with a particular focus on political systems and political parties. This book, on the other hand, examines the role that parliaments – a key institution of democracy – play in East, Southeast and South Asia including Taiwan and Hong Kong. Parliaments in these locations function in a variety of historical, political and socio-economic circumstances with different implications for institution building and political development. This book examines questions like how accessible, representative, transparent, accountable and effective are parliaments? To what extent are parliaments able to hold other political actors to account or how far are they constrained by the political environment in which they operate? Going further, this book considers how new media such as the Internet and other social platforms, through providing avenues for individuals to articulate their views separate from official channels, are influencing the ways parliaments work. To stay relevant, parliamentarians need to reach out and engage these individuals in formulating, deciding and fine-tuning policies. In the information age, being a parliamentarian has become more challenging and how a parliamentarian copes with this change will shape the nature and pace of political development.

This work explores state building and the processes by which supporting state bureaucratic organizations aided the state building effort in Republican China between 1927 and 1940. It suggests that in hostile environments profoundly non-congenial to state building efforts, it is the state organizations that stand the best chance of becoming well institutionalized. This book details the administrative histories and institution-building strategies of three organizations in Republican China dealing with the national civil service, taxation, and foreign affairs.

Between 1995 and the present day, the world has undergone significant advances in international law, norms, and institutions. Progress was particularly intense in the fields of global environment, human security, cultural diversity, and human rights. This book reveals the key role played by the European Union, Japan, and Canada in this process.