国際社会の歴史的展開の視点から見た平和構築と国家建設

抄録

This essay illustrates the dilemma between peacebuilding and statebuilding in the process of the expansion and evolution of “universal international society.” In so doing, the essay compares contemporary post-conflict statebuilding activities with the traditional formation of sovereign states in modern Europe and raises the question of the role of war for statebuilding processes.
This essay argues that it is more constructive to understand armed conflicts as a phenomenon during unstable phases of the long process of statebuilding rather than as flaws in perfect international society. Namely, contemporary universal international society has not reached a complete end-point; it is still in a process of evolution. The point is shown by what this essay calls the world’s conflict-prone zone ranging from Sub-Sahara Africa to South-East Asia. Most of contemporary armed conflicts are taking place within this zone where newly independent states born after de-colonization accumulate. Those new states are still fragile in terms of the social foundation of their existence.
The traditional sovereign states like Great Britain, France, and Germany established their existence after revolutionary forces won internal or civil wars to be autonomous entities in international society. They also severely competed with each other by enhancing their military capacity for international wars. The accumulation of capital and population through the development of taxation and conscription was a crucial factor of statebuilding in the period of traditional European international society. War and preparation for war were the major catalyst of democratization and welfare state, as the government needed to take responsibility for its policies to mobilize the mass population. Without war mechanisms traditional sovereign states would not have been able to develop their social foundation for stable existence.
It is problematic to say that statebuilding has something to do with war experiences in domestic society as well as international society; Statebuilding is usually supposed to be a solution to the problem of armed conflict. However, in reality, it is quite often the case that statebuilding is a result of policies to cope with internal and external armed conflicts. Statebuilding is expected to be part of peacebuilding, but it is only so with the understanding that both statebuilding and peacebuilding are part of a long process of completion of universal international society, which is not yet finished.