Everything about Nation Building totally explained
For nation-building in the sense of deliberate efforts by a foreign power to construct institutions of national government, see State-building
Nation-building refers to the process of constructing or structuring a nation using the power of the state. This process aims at the unification of the people or peoples within the state so that it remains politically stable and viable in the long run. Nation-building can involve the use of propaganda or major infrastructure development to foster social harmony and economic growth.
Overview
Originally, nation-building referred to the efforts of newly-independent nations, notably the nations of
Africa, to reshape colonial territories that had been carved out by colonial powers without regard to ethnic or other boundaries. These reformed states would then become viable and coherent national entities.
Nation-building included the creation of superficial
national paraphernalia such as
flags,
anthems,
national days, national stadiums, national airlines,
national languages, and
national myths. At a deeper level, national identity needed to be deliberately constructed by moulding different groups into a nation, especially since
colonialism had used
divide and rule tactics to maintain its domination.
One of the most successful nation-building efforts has been in
Singapore, where it has a mixture of Chinese, Tamil, Malay, Eurasian and other races.
However, many new states were plagued by "
tribalism", rivalry between ethnic groups within the nation. This sometimes resulted in their near-disintegration, such as the attempt by
Biafra to secede from
Nigeria in 1970, or the continuing demad of the Somali people in the
Ogaden region of
Ethiopia for complete independence. In Asia, the disintegration of
Pakistan into Pakistan and
Bangladesh is another example where ethnic differences, aided by geographic distance, tore apart a post-colonial state. The
Rwandan genocide and recurrent problems experienced by the
Sudan can also be related to a lack of ethnic, religious, or racial cohesion within the nation. It has often proved difficult to unite states with similar ethnic but different colonial backgrounds. Whereas successful examples like
Cameroon do exist, failures like
Senegambia Confederation demonstrate the problems of uniting
Francophone and
Anglophone territories.
More recently, nation-building has come to be used in a completely different context, with reference to what has been succinctly described by its proponents as "the use of armed force in the aftermath of a conflict to underpin an enduring transition to democracy." In this sense nation-building, better referred to as
state building, describes deliberate efforts by a foreign power to construct or install the institutions of a national government, according to a model that may be more familiar to the foreign power but is often considered foreign and even destabilising. Nation-building is typically characterised by massive investment, military occupation, transitional government, and the use of propaganda to communicate governmental policy.
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