| Sumario: | "This book addresses a prime challenge facing the international community: how to address governance gaps in fragile states. When governments fail to provide law and order and other basic public services, their citizens suffer, and threats to international security can emerge. Ordinary foreign aid programs are often insufficient remedies. A remarkable alternative therefore has arisen in which international and national actors share authority to carry out core sovereign tasks. This type of "sovereignty sharing" is controversial and challenging but is an important way in which the United Nations and other key global actors have sought to bolster governance in troubled polities. I examine sovereignty-sharing arrangements designed to repair ruptures in the rule of law-the heart of a well-governed state. I discuss both the conditions under which sovereignty may be justified and the conditions under which joint ventures are likely to be effective in meeting their aims. A central argument in the book is that these two questions are closely related, because the perceived legitimacy of a sovereignty-sharing venture hinges primarily on its performance. Sovereignty sharing carries important positive potential as a way to provide stopgap governance services and to help strengthen and reform ailing local institutions. It can pair international resources and expertise with local knowledge and ownership. Thriving partnerships can deliver better public services, earn popular legitimacy, and foster capacity building and domestic institutional reform. However, the dangers of sovereignty-sharing arrangements are equally apparent. This book illuminates the political factors that shape the creation, design, and implementation of sovereignty-sharing arrangements-and thus their performance and perceived legitimacy--above all on how the convergence or divergence of national and international interests shape these exceptional ventures. Sovereignty sharing is usually based on precarious political foundations, as the partners seldom share a common vision for governance. To accommodate differences, sovereignty-sharing arrangements are usually rooted in ambiguous agreements that contribute to confusion and discord during implementation. In particular, the partners' interests tend to diverge on matters of domestic institutional reform. As a result, while sovereignty-sharing schemes often have made important contributions through stopgap service provision, their record is much weaker on embedding reform. This book illustrates these arguments by examining sovereignty-sharing arrangements in three key domains: hybrid criminal tribunals, joint policing arrangements, and anti-corruption initiatives. Within each area, I touch on the universe of relevant cases and discuss the most important ventures in depth. These include cases from Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, Timor-Leste, Guatemala, and Liberia. The diversity of these case studies helps to show the broad relevance of the book's arguments"--
|
|---|
