Joint Seminar presented by RegNet/Department of International Relations/Peace Research Network
Accountability in State Building Interventions
Iris Wielders, PhD Candidate, Department of International Relations, ANU

Questions surrounding the effectiveness and legitimacy of state building interventions are forming a growing global research agenda. Apart from a small number of transitional administrations, most state building interventions take the form of extensive longer-term state building partnerships between external actors and governments – they are ‘cooperative state building interventions’. This partnership model has been criticised for its lack of transparency in terms of power relations and responsibilities, with claims that the partnership model is a deliberate attempt to escape accountability for aid policies. However, the question of how accountability can be constituted in these cooperative state building interventions remains under-investigated.

Cooperative state building interventions are neither actual institutions of global governance nor ordinary development assistance programs, complicating the question how accountability can be constituted in such interventions. Accountability mechanisms in these interventions cannot simply draw on existing accountability models in global governance institutions, and their constitution as comprehensive long-term partnerships with governments calls for more than conventional aid monitoring and evaluation to constitute accountability. In addition, the concept of accountability is itself contested. This paper investigates these complexities and suggests that the question how accountability should be constituted in cooperative state building interventions involves the negotiation of a number of dilemmas.