Dear Kobi (if I may). You may wish to look at my book 'Peace Processes: A Sociological Approach' (Polity, 2010), especially chapter 1 'Types of Post Violence Society', for it looks at some of the problems new states face after conflict, including if they are weak economically. Good luck with your research.

Dear John,

of course you may and it is my pleasure. Thank you for your contribution and I will look for the book hopefully found in our library. I wonder if it might be possible to ask you for a PDF version of this chapter if you have such.

Dear Dr. Michael,

Excellent topic and I agree we have to look ahead. In light of the civil war now engulfing South Sudan, I am worried about potential future armed conflict between Fatah and Hamas. I applaud Mr. Abbas' efforts to reconcile these two, but it has not and will not be easy. It will be important for the new Palestinian political system to engage groups across a broad ideological spectrum, and different religious groups (Muslim, Christian... and there may be Jewish settlements that come under Palestinian sovereignty). See Chuck Call's book Why Peace Fails (2012). He argues persuasively that "political inclusion" (broadly defined--can take many different forms) is important for avoiding resumption of civil war. I think the argument applies to the Palestine case too.

Thank you Suzanne. There is no doubt that the Fatah-Hamas split in the Palestinian arena is one of the major obstacles regarding stability of the internal arena as well as the external one which includes Israel of course.

I think the so called reconciliation agreement is doomed to failure and actually it is much more crucial to look for what is missing there in order to understand the huge gaps between the parties and the very slight chance of bridging them. Today or tomorrow a paper I wrote in this regard will be published by the INSS Insight Series that can be found on there web: inss.org.il

Wonderful! I will look for it. Your assessment is not encouraging but must be reckoned with.

For your convenience:

http://www.inss.org.il/index.aspx?id=4538&articleid=6983

Thanks!

I have attached two articles that are theoretically oriented... may be of assistance.

Best,

Dave

Thank you David. Really appreciate it and will read it carefully.

kobi

Many of the literature have been preoccupied with trying to answer the question of how failed, fragile or failed states can be put back on the path of political stability and the institutions of this country will be reinstated, especially in the case of societies emerging from civil war. Failed state situations in civil wars.

Where the latter becomes a cause or symptom of the failed and defeated state. In this context, many theories developed, which in turn gave great responsibility to foreign forces - represented by major powers, international organizations, regional powers and organizations - in building peace in these societies. However, the success of the external role in achieving that task remains subject to a number of important conditions, some of which relate to the policies of external forces, and others relate to the nature of the communities themselves.

Natural settlement of internal conflict through civil war

Despite the importance of literature on peace building through external forces, which is rapidly developing, there is still a lot of corresponding literature that is still looking at the degree of doubt about the outside role in this area. The most prominent of these views was that of Jeffrey Herbstt that the path The most appropriate way to deal with situations of failed states is to leave them to face their internal structural crises, even if it leads to their downfall, or let them fail, and go through the natural course of state-building through conflict and cooperation without interference external. He agrees with Geremy Weinstein, who emphasizes the need to leave failed states to go through the internal conflict, regardless of the level of violence that characterizes this conflict, so that one of the conflicting parties can resolve this conflict and impose its vision and conditions for peace. "The natural settlement of conflicts and civil wars," based on a genuine count of the balance of power, and the presence of a clear, victorious party, without external interference, is the most capable of building lasting and sustainable peace and achieving post-conflict political and economic development.

This trend is based on several justifications, including that peacebuilding initiatives from abroad are by nature ambitious initiatives that transcend the objective reality of failed and failed states, and in essence seek to transcend the "natural path" that state-building must take in these countries. That failed states often suffer from identity problems because of the artificial way in which these countries developed, especially during the colonial period, and thus these countries have not resolved the problem of identity yet, which is a prerequisite for the building of the national state.

Conditions for building peace from abroad

In contrast to this vision, the vast majority of the literature continues to focus on the importance of the external role of peace-building in the failed and failed states, and considers it essential in this area not only for considerations of global and regional security protection and limited capacity of internal parties to go beyond civil war. Moral as well. Based on this, these literature set out a number of prerequisites for the success of the external role in fulfilling this responsibility. Most focused on the extent to which foreign powers and their local allies have a clear vision of the post-war phase, the way local forces and elites interact with the proposed peace-building process and the nature of the local community In terms of the degree of diversity and experience / cooperative / cooperative between elites and local ingredients, and the extent of regional consensus on this project ... Etc.

In this context, a number of important questions have been raised about the nature of the political system that is imposed from abroad or with the assistance of foreign powers, in the sense of priority: the imposition of a democratic system or the building of a strong state regardless of the degree of democracy of the regime? Some literature has given priority to building a democratic system. The assumption here is that the greater the democracy of the political system, the more viable the system will be, which will positively reflect on the process of rebuilding peace. The explanation here is that the democratic system is most capable of absorbing and representing new political forces and actors, especially in the case of multi-ethnic or religious societies. There are several empirical studies that confirm this hypothesis. In his study on the history of externally imposed democracies (2008), Andrew Interline and Michael Gregg concluded that the success of external forces in establishing a strong and coherent democratic political system contributes to the survival of this system for periods of time Longer than in fragile democracies.

However, there is another point of view that can not be underestimated. The issue is not related to the degree of democracy of the political system imposed from abroad, but rather to the success of external forces in building strong state institutions. The chances of successful peacebuilding have increased. The explanation here is that the success of peace-building or nation-building depends not only on the ability of the institutions of the system to represent political actors, but also on the extent to which the institutions of the system are able to carry out their political, economic and security functions, , Especially in the early stages of the regime's life. Thus, the view is that democracies (imposed from abroad) are most closely linked to violence and the emergence of internal political challenges, especially in the case of highly pluralistic societies, as opposed to the systems closest to autocracy.

In fact, there may be no substantive contradiction between the two previous points of view. The imposition of the democratic system may be linked to a degree of violence and political challenges in the early stages of regime building, but in the long run, the democratic system is most closely related to stability and survival.

Thank you Asim. Since I uploaded my questions and requests I have finished writing my book which was published in the Hebrew version in July 2016 and its English version will be published in the coming days. the book is titled "The Arab World on the Road to State Failure"

Article State building in post-conflict zones: lessons from Palestin...