Introduction

This introductory chapter situates this study and the phenomenon of state reconstitution in the literature on state collapse and state formation. It also discusses the methodology used to select the cases and investigate them. In brief, a most-different, same-outcome research design is employed to search for and evaluate a set of causal conditions hypothesized to be necessary for successful state reconstitution. The chapter next discusses prior scholarly findings on state formation – specifically, the roles of social forces, ideas and warfare in this process. This chapter concludes with an overview of the study’s theoretical framework – which emphasizes the importance of ideational and sociogeographic factors – and an outline of the study’s organization.