The sovereignty paradox: the norms and politics of international statebuilding

By looking at the post-conflict international administrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and East Timor, the book examines how particular ideas about the state, and about the appropriate relationship between the state and its population have influenced the statebuilding efforts of the international community

By looking at the post-conflict international administrations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and East Timor, the book examines how particular ideas about the state, and about the appropriate relationship between the state and its population have influenced the statebuilding efforts of the international community.

The post-cold war years have witnessed an unprecedented involvement by the United Nations in the domestic affairs of states, to end conflicts and rebuild political and administrative institutions. International administrations established by the UN or Western states have exercised extensive executive, legislative, and judicial authority over post-conflict territories to facilitate institution building and provide for interim governance.This book is a study of the normative framework underlying the international community's statebuilding efforts. Through detailed case studies of policymaking by