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Der Aufbau eines unabhängigen Nationalstaats ist für die Legitimierung des gegenwärtigen politischen Regimes in Usbekistan - wie in allen postsowjetischen Staaten - von großer Wichtigkeit, da eine Schaffung einer nationalen Identität als sozialer Kohäsionsfaktor in Zeiten wirtschaftlicher Krise gesehen wird. In den urbanen Zentren des Landes scheint diese Strategie von Erfolg gekrönt zu sein. Inwieweit sich auch die Landbevölkerung die neue nationale Identität zu eigen macht, bleibt einstweilen eine offene Frage. (BIOst-Mrk)

How do the outcomes of international wars affect domestic social change? In turn, how do changing patterns of social identification and domestic conflict affect a nation's military capability? We propose a "second image reversed" theory of war that links structural variables, power politics, and the individuals that constitute states. Drawing on experimental results in social psychology, we recapture a lost building block of the classical realist theory of statecraft: the connections between the outcomes of international wars, patterns of social identification and domestic conflict, and the nation's future war-fighting capability. When interstate war can significantly increase a state's international status, peace is less likely to prevail in equilibrium because, by winning a war and raising the nation's status, leaders induce individuals to identify nationally, thereby reducing internal conflict by increasing investments in state capacity. In certain settings, it is only through the anticipated social change that victory can generate that leaders can unify their nation, and the higher anticipated payoffs to national unification makes leaders fight international wars that they would otherwise choose not to fight. We use the case of German unification after the Franco-Prussian war to demonstrate the model's value-added and illustrate the interaction between social identification, nationalism, state-building, and the power politics of interstate war.

Scholars associated with theories of "nation-building" have tended either to ignore the question of ethnic diversity or to treat the matter of ethnic identity superficially as merely one of a number of minor impediments to effective state-integration. To the degree that ethnic identity is given recognition, it is apt to be as a somewhat unimportant and ephemeral nuisance that will unquestionably give way to a common identity uniting all inhabitants of the state, regardless of ethnic heritage, as modern communication and transportation networks link the state's various parts more closely. Both tendencies are at sharp variance with the facts, and have contributed to the undue optimism that has characterized so much of the literature on "nation-building."

The state of res on nation-building in the Maghreb is described. The aim is to discover the structural (ie, SH) foundations of nation-building within a relatively uniform regional context (the 3 former French colonies of the Maghreb: Morocco, Algeria & Tunisia). In order to understand Maghrebian society & its particular history, we must consider the Maghreb against its natural background, the Mediterranean world. 2 widely accepted interpretations of this phenomenon exist: (a) that of the classical orientalists, united at the time when the colonial system was at its zenith; & (b) that of the anti-colonialist Marxist, uniting towards the end of the colonial era. Most representative of the orientalists is E. F. Gautier, who states that the marked disparity in the twin processes of nation-building to the north & south of the Mediterranean occurred from the 11th cent onwards because the Arab nomads had put down the first attempt on the part of settled Berber peasant communities to set up an autochtonous nat'l State based on an alliance between peasantry & townsfolk. The Marxists hold that the evolution of Maghrebian society towards modern nationhood was to a very large extent conditioned by the balance of pol'al forces within the Mediterranean zone. They also resusitated the notion of an Asian form of production. The contribution of French ethnologists & English speaking anthrop'ts is also discussed. It is pointed out that it is in patrilineage that we meet with the basic pol'al unit of all the peasant communities of the Maghreb. It is shown that in all 3 countries, it was the union of forces between the peasants & the Ur elites that made the movement for nat'l liberation irreversible. Independence & the reactivation of the segmentary structures is discussed, & it is demonstrated why on the eve of colonization, the 3 countries were not in the same situation as far as nation-building was concerned. E. Weiman.

Preparation for nation-building requires that responsible political leaders consult both with regional and functional experts, those who know why the society in question descended into conflict and those who know from experience elsewhere how to put such societies back together. Goals must be established which transcend the most immediate and normally negative purposes of the inter vention, e.g. halting conflict, stopping genocide or turning back aggression. These positive goals must be commensurate with the scale of military manpower and economic assistance likely to be committed. The larger the social transformation envisaged, the greater the resistance likely to be encountered. The most common cause for the failure of nation-building endeavours is a mismatch between objectives and commitments. (Survival / SWP)