Cities and Conflict in Fragile States in the Developing World (original) (raw)
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Cities have long been connected with processes of bureaucratisation and state building, as they have been to conflict and war. In bringing these two associations together Charles Tilly (1992) provided a useful analytical linchpin by famously highlighting the interaction between cities and war making as a critical factor in state making. He showed how in early modern Europe urban merchants struck bargains with medieval power brokers when agreeing to help fund wars aimed at extending or consolidating sovereignty. The intersection of cities, states and violent conflict remains significant today, although it manifests in different and more complex ways, particularly under conditions of state fragility.
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For a fleeting moment during the final decade of the twentieth century, the general trajectory of conflict across the world seemed clear. With the Cold War over, the number of interstate wars was in free-fall and the dominant form of violence was internal, within fragmenting states no longer propped up by their superpower sponsors. The age of 'total war' between states had thus been largely superseded by a wave of civil conflicts, often characterised as 'new wars', fought for the most part in rural hinterlands and widely considered as limited in scope and scale.
Working Paper 85. Cities, Conflict and State Fragility
2011
Cities have long been connected with processes of bureaucratisation and state building, as they have been to conflict and war. In bringing these two associations together Charles Tilly (1992) provided a useful analytical linchpin by famously highlighting the interaction between cities and war making as a critical factor in state making. He showed how in early modern Europe urban merchants struck bargains with medieval power brokers when agreeing to help fund wars aimed at extending or consolidating sovereignty. The intersection of cities, states and violent conflict remains significant today, although it manifests in different and more complex ways, particularly under conditions of state fragility. Urban politics are critically important to the way social tensions and antagonisms are managed in cities. We identify four ways in which this occurs: i) manipulation of contestation into violent conflict; ii) deferral and/or suppression of contestation; iii) clientelist cooption of the aggrieved; and iv) fostering of generative engagement. Each of these has a distinct impact on state fragility through processes of state erosion, consolidation and transformation. The third and fourth of these approaches offer the best route for avoiding conflict in the medium and long term; but only the last is likely to allow for state transformation and dynamic development. Civic conflict can be positive and creative, but when violent and destructive it represents a significant contemporary threat to human security, state consolidation and development. Peace settlements and reconstruction processes brokered nationally need to take careful account of their impact on urban populations and the state at city level. 'Post'-conflict urban stability cannot be taken for granted, especially in the context of state fragility, while reconstruction efforts can actually undermine the potential of cities to accommodate inclusive political coalitions that promote development and state transformation in the city and beyond.
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