ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the neoliberal regime. Neoliberal interventionist peacebuilding and statebuilding (PBSB) has been pursued in conflict and post-conflict conditions of fragility, failure and collapse. The rationale for the intervention is always the perception that a failed state is a danger to its own people and to the world in general, and thus needs to be ‘cured’. The chapter examines the process, mechanism and ideological motives of intervention. It argues that neoliberal PBSB is characterised by short-term, technical and administrative approaches, and is an elitist, top-down, external imposition. It analyses the three mechanisms by which Western values and norms acquire universality: socialisation, internalisation and externalisation. This is followed by an analysis of neoliberal peacebuilding that is followed by an analysis of neoliberal statebuilding. These two sections constitute the core of the chapter. The next section addresses state fragility. It argues why it is regarded as important to fix fragile and failed states. The chapter poses (and seeks to answer) the question of whether neoliberal interventionist PBSB can cure the pathologies afflicting fragile societies. The last section of the chapter provides some concluding thoughts.
