State formation and the politics of regime survival

The key issue to be addressed in the project is the following: What are the conditions of state formation in the contemporary world? To address this issue, we will study the experiences with state building in selected states in Asia and Africa. We will st udy six countries. The countries are: South Korea (1945-late 1960s), Malaysia (1948-late 1960s), South Vietnam (1954-1975) Botswana (1966-), Rhodesia/Zimbabwe (1965-2000) and Congo/Zaïre (1965-1997). We argue that state building frequently takes place t hrough violent rivalry with enemies of the regime within and outside the national territory. Thus, we focus particularly on how state building has been affected by the security threats faced by states.We identify two main forms of security threats. The fi rst form is violent threats from outside the state against the state itself or the ruling regime. The second form is a violent threat from within the state's territory against the regime's control over the state or against its control over a larger or sma ller part of its territory. We argue that the outcome, the strengthening or weakening of state capabilities will depend on the kind of security threats faced by the states and regimes (external, internal), and on the interaction between the regimes and th eir political constituencies. Thus, the dependent variable of the project is state building, while the key independent variables are 1) External security threats against the state. 2. Internal security against the regime. 3. The nature of the ruling reg ime's constituencies. Our hypotheses can be specified as follows: The establishment of a strong state is facilitated by: 1. The existence of an external security threat. 2. The existence of an internal class-based security threat directed against the sta te and ruling classes. 3. Constituency building with a class or social group that has an interest in the establishment of a strong state.