In the process of developing his innovative theories of microeconomics, the 20th century’s most influential economist, John Maynard Keynes, repeatedly came to the conclusion that his earlier beliefs failed to hold water. This in turn made his critics accuse him of flip-flopping. Keynes is said to have famously quipped: “When the facts change, I change my mind – what do you do, sir?”
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The rapid evolution of the Estonian statehood and abrupt social changes have by the outset of the 21st century created a sense of crisis.
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Recently, the term nation building that came to describe the creation of nation states in the 19th and early 20th century, has begun to take on a new meaning. A dozen of years ago at the University of London, I was taught that nation building was the unification of Germany under Bismarck or the unification of Italy led by Garibaldi and di Cavour. This also occurred in Czech areas and in other new countries that arose from the fall of the Habsburg Empire.
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Since 9/11, millions of people in America and in Europe have asked: Why do Muslims, especially those who have exposure to the West, hate us? Why do we offend them so much? Even though millions of Muslims live in predominately Christian Europe, North America and South America, why have, it seems, so many turned away from the West in recent years and all that it has to offer: its education systems, its freedoms, its opportunities, its wealth?
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There’s an old joke about the English traveller lost in rural Ireland. He stops his car and asks a local farmer how to get to Kilkenny. The farmer thinks for a while and then responds ‘well, to be honest sir, if you’re trying to get to Kilkenny I wouldn’t start from here’.
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On dark days, the average international aid worker wonders whether she is doing more harm than good. Meddling in other cultures, she thinks, is quixotic at best and idiotic at worst, and the best thing the international community can do is to sit back and wait for a country to find its own path to development.
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An old proverb tells us not to enter a foreign cloister with our own rules. But how do you feel about dictating rules to this cloister? Or interfering in its day to day operations?
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This issue of diplomacy is devoted to the issue of state-building. Carl Bildt, the former Prime Minister of Sweden discusses the problems and potential solutions concerning the revival of the so-called failed or failing states.
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