Semantics of statebuilding: language, meanings and sovereignty

1. Introduction : disputing Weberian semantics / Nicolas Lemay-Hebert, Nicholas Onuf and Vojin Rakic -- 2. World-making, state-building / Nicholas Onuf -- 3. Politics, law, and the sacred : a conceptual analysis / Friedrich Kratochwil -- 4. Kant's semantics of world (state) making / Vojin Rakic -- 5. The semantics of early statebuilding : why the Eurasian Steppe has been overlooked / Iver B. Neumann -- 6. The semantics of statebuilding and nationbuilding : looking beyond neo-Weberian approaches / Nicolas Lemay-Hebert -- 7. Transformative statebuilding, occupation, and international law : friends or foes? / Jan Wouters and Kenneth Chan -- 8. The semantics of 'crisis management' : simulation and EU statebuilding in the Balkans / David Chandler -- 9. The semantics of contemporary statebuilding : Kosovo, Timor-Leste, and the 'empty-shell' approach / Nicolas Lemay-Hebert -- 10. The 'crisis of capitalism' and the state : more powerful, less responsible, invariably legitimate / Albena Azmanova -- 11. The neoliberal biopolitics of resilience and the spectre of the ecofascist state / Julian Reid.

This volume examines international statebuilding in terms of language and meanings, rather than focusing narrowly on current policy practices.After two decades of evolution towards more 'integrated,' 'multi-faceted' or, simply stated, more intrusive statebuilding and peacebuilding operations, a critical literature has slowly emerged on the economic, social and political impacts of these interventions. Scholars have started to analyse the 'unintended consequences' of peacebuilding missions, analysing all aspects of interventions. Central to the book is the understanding that language is both th