Coppedge, John Gerring, David Altman, Michael Bernhard, Steven Fish, Allen Hicken, Matthew Kroenig, Staffan I. Lindberg, Kelly McMann, Pamela Paxton, Holli A. Semetko, Svend-Erik Skanning, Jeffrey Staton, and Jan Teorell, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach,” Perspectives on Politics 9, no. 2 (2011): 247–67; and “Indicators of Governance and Institutional Quality” (n.d.), http://siteresources.worldbank.org /INTLAWJUSTINST/Resources/ IndicatorsGovernanceandInstitutionalQuality.pdf.
55This selection is similar to the “folk Bayesian” approach identified by Timothy McKeown. See Henry E. Brady and David Collier, eds., Rethinking Social Inquiry: Diverse Tools, Shared Standards (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), chap. 9.
56In the course of recounting the events of the reform effort, the case studies describe details or data points or “causal process observations” that offer evidence in support or opposition to the proposed process hypotheses of the different theories. See James Mahoney, “After KKV: The New Methodology of Qualitative Research,” World Politics 62, no. 1 (2010): 125–29; Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005), chap. 10; and Brady and Collier, Rethinking Social Inquiry. For an application of process tracing in studying state building, see Oisín Tansey, “Evaluating the Legacies of State-Building: Success, Failure, and the Role of Responsibility,” International Studies Quarterly 58, no. 1 (March 2014): 175–77.
57See George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, chap. 8.
58All interviews cited below were conducted by the author. Where I cite interviews conducted by others, I cite the work in which they are quoted or described.
59See James Dobbins, Seth Jones, Benjamin Runkle, and Siddharth Mohandas, Occupying Iraq: A History of the Coalition Provisional Authority (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2009).
CHAPTER TWO
The DOMESTIC OPPOSITION THEORY and ALTERNATIVE THEORIES
In 2008 I made my first field research trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia, or BiH). The postwar mission in Bosnia had begun in 1995, and by the time I arrived the international community had pursued a wide range of efforts to help build peace, strengthen state institutions, and encourage the development of a multiethnic society. Some of the most well-resourced efforts to remake the country had achieved little, such as a police restructuring effort (see chapter 5). More practical, incremental efforts that avoided core political interests had the most success, such as the creation of a value added tax and a defense-reform effort (see chapter 4).
Bosnia was my first observation of the dynamic I would later observe firsthand in Ukraine. On one hand, foreign reformers must advocate for changes to correct the problems they observe, or else those problems will persist. On the other hand, any changes they seek have consequences for elites leading the government, the officials working within an institution, and the broader population of the society. Reforms of state institutions are inherently political, even if foreign actors may claim that they are pursuing only technical changes. Threatening core interests can provoke domestic opposition that makes a reform effort less successful than it might have been if the reformer had asked for less in the first place. International resources and preexisting institutions did set the context for reform, but the occurrence or absence of domestic opposition typically proved more important.
To understand the dynamics I observed in Bosnia, I developed a domestic opposition theory to understand when and how domestic actors can oppose reform. I also used the literature to derive competing predictions about how international resources and path dependence shape reform. This chapter presents the hypotheses of these theories, which I draw on in the case studies in chapters 3 through 6. I first present a framework for dividing reform efforts into multiple stages for analysis. Then I explore the origins of foreign demands and recommendations. The next three sections lay out the domestic opposition theory, considering in turn nationalist goals, patron-client networks, and reforms that threaten both interests or neither interest. The final sections of the chapter detail the alternative theories, on international resources and path dependence.
FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING THE STAGES OF A REFORM EFFORT
The domestic opposition theory and the case studies divide reform efforts into multiple stages. During a stage of reform, the foreign actor seeks to implement particular demands or recommendations. Each stage of reform is divided into the four steps shown in figure 2.1.
In the first step, foreign actors formulate and articulate the changes in the target state institution that they seek to accomplish. These changes may include adjustments in the formal rules, structures, or common practices of the institution. Desired changes may be framed as demands or recommendations depending on the international resources and the political and legal structure in place, including whether a foreign reformer has legal authority over a society or is acting more as an adviser to the sovereign government of the country. Where possible, I identify specific changes rather than general goals, for example, focusing on the requirement that a police institution is subordinate to the central government rather than a general goal that the accountability of the police force is improved. In identifying demands and recommendations, the case studies also focus on practical and realistic changes that foreign reformers sought to achieve rather than aspirational goals that they may have articulated. In the second step, domestic actors, including both elites and mass publics, decide whether to accept the reform or to oppose it either publicly or privately. In the third step of a reform stage, a state institution is more or less improved due to the behavior of foreign and domestic actors. In the fourth step, the foreign actor may either end the reform effort or may reformulate a new set of demands or recommendations and begin a new stage of reform. The new set of desired changes may be developed because of a recognition of past failure or because of some external decision, such as pressure from the countries supporting the foreign mission.
FIGURE 2.1. Steps in a Stage of Reform
This framework builds on the existing works analyzing peace or state building as a strategic interaction between foreign and domestic actors.1 The framework presented here breaks new ground by focusing on specific state institutions rather than society-level dynamics. The proposed steps in a stage of a reform effort do not necessarily happen in sequence. For example, the ruling elites may oppose a reform over the course of several years at the same time as the state institution is being gradually improved. Through its simplification of more complex reform efforts, the framework offers a means to understand how different actors’ decisions contribute to the ultimate outcome of reform.
ORIGINS
