The New Protectorates

International Administration and the Dilemmas of Governance

Context and goals

The aim of the project, run by the Centre for International Studies at the University of Cambridge (James Mayall, GPPi Fellow Ricardo Soares De Oliveira) in cooperation with GPPi, was to understand the theories of governance (meaning the inextricably linked questions of how to govern and how to justify it) that underpin the enterprise of international administration in post-war territories. Specifically, it focused on the role of international protectorates in current efforts at producing order in the international system; the tension between the conservative (maintenance of order) and the progressive (the building of liberal states) agendas at the heart of this enterprise; the manners in which non-Western states perceive them and why this matters; and the future prospects of the international protectorates, particular in view of the record thus far.

The project aimed at diagnosis and analysis rather than problem-solving accounts of the process common in the existing policy and academic literature; neither did it draw the usual sharp analytical distinction between normative and empirical aspects of international administration since in practice they cannot be dissociated. It brought together participants from policy circles and academia with expertise that ranged from international law, security studies and political science to history and political philosophy.

Activities

The project involved a series of conferences that led to a volume on The New Protectorates: International Tutelage and the Making of Liberal States, edited by James Mayall and Ricardo Soares de Oliveira. The volume is forthcoming in 2011 with Hurst and Columbia University Press.

The project commenced with an international conference at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Conference Centre in February 2006. The goal of the Bellagio conference was threefold: firstly, to scrutinize the state of the art of the first wave of studies on the subject and the wealth of experience collected in a substantial range of international administrations. Secondly, specifically to address why international governance has fallen short of creating the sort of sustainable institutions, "well-adjusted" political actors and liberal politics it aspires to. This encompassed analyses of both notable policy failures of international administrations and of the deeper structural and political limitations of the new protectorates. Thirdly, it sought to highlight gaps, both empirical and conceptual, in our grasp of the politics of state building by outsiders, and suggest tracks for a future research agenda.

A second conference (funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation) was held at the University of Cambridge (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities) from 6-8 June 2007. It was a writers’ conference where participants presented full academic papers commissioned in the wake of the Bellagio meeting. The meeting brought together a highly international and interdisciplinary group of scholars and practitioners including Christopher Hill, Brendan Simms and Christopher Clapham (Cambridge), Wolfgang Seibel (University of Konstanz), Richard Caplan (Oxford), Mats Berdal (King's College London), David Keen and Spyros Economides (London School of Economics), Maj.Gen. (ret) John Drewienkiewicz, Aswini Kanta Ray (University of Delhi), Masayuki Tadokoro (Keio University) and William Burke-White (University of Pennsylvania). 

Programs and complete lists of participants for both conferences can be found in the right column of this page.