IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/epc/journl/v2y2007i2p94-100.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Deconstructing reconstruction: The overlooked challenges of military occupation

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher Coyne

    (Hampden-Sydney College, VA, USA)

Abstract

In the post-Cold War period, the main threat to the United States and other Western nations comes from weak, failed, and conflict-torn states. The viability of military occupation and reconstruction as strategies to deal with these threats is an open issue. I explore two central, but often overlooked, issues that every occupation and reconstruction must face. First, I consider the “knowledge problem, which refers to the lack of understanding of how to establish the foundations of liberal democratic institutions where they do not already exist. I then consider the “public choice problem, which focuses on the decisionmaking process within the United States. Oftentimes, the incentives created by political institutions generate policies that run counter to the end goals of reconstruction efforts abroad. Formulating effective policies toward weak, failed, and conflict-torn states requires the recognition and understanding of these challenges and the constraints they impose.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher Coyne, 2007. "Deconstructing reconstruction: The overlooked challenges of military occupation," Economics of Peace and Security Journal, EPS Publishing, vol. 2(2), pages 94-100, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:epc:journl:v:2:y:2007:i:2:p:94-100
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.epsjournal.org.uk/index.php/EPSJ/article/view/57
    Download Restriction: Open access 24 months after original publication.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Diana Weinert Thomas & Michael Thomas, 2010. "Encouraging a Productive Research Agenda: Peter Boettke and the Devil's Test," Journal of Private Enterprise, The Association of Private Enterprise Education, vol. 26(Fall 2010), pages 103-115.
    2. Bernhard Klingen, 2011. "A Public Choice Perspective on Defense and Alliance Policy," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Coyne & Rachel L. Mathers (ed.), The Handbook on the Political Economy of War, chapter 17, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Military occupation; public choice; reconstriuction; institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • H56 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - National Security and War
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:epc:journl:v:2:y:2007:i:2:p:94-100. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael Brown, Managing Editor, EPSJ (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecaarea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.