Review: The Beginner's Guide to Nation-Building
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200806300220 |
| Author | Robert Berschinski |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
| International Journal | Spring 2008 | 495 |
| Reviews |
of Americanism as religion—to Wilson and Reagan. This is, ultimately, the
popularized case for the religious sources of American universalism, the var-
ious crusades to make the world safe for democracy. Older European conser-
vatives—like Carl Schmitt—or contemporary anti-Americans would quickly
accept the accuracy of this account. For scholars of anti-Americanism, he
draws attention to some important cultural-historical moments: the sympa-
thy of European states with the confederacy as evidence of the long history
of European animosity to the American democratization agenda, and the
tropological similarity between European attacks on Wilson and Bush. He
also draws repeatedly on the “city on the hill” metaphor that Reagan revived
from Winthrop. Greater attentiveness to the workings of the metaphor could
unpack the dynamic of anti-Americanism. For if the image gives expression
to an American idealism, an aspiration to live the exemplary life, Winthrop
linked that exposure to universal scrutiny: “the eyes of all peoples” would
watch the city. The American predisposition to project its ideals outward
means constant observation as well—the whole world is watching.
Russell A. Berman/Stanford University
THE BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO NATION-BUILDING
James Dobbins, Seth G. Jones, Keith Crane, and Beth Cole DeGrasse
Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2006. 275pp, US$35.00 paper (ISBN 978-
0833039880)
There is a certain bitter irony in the title of the RAND Corporation’s
The Be-
ginner’s Guide to Nation-Building
. Authored by a team led by James Dobbins,
RAND’s director of international security and defence policy and a noted na-
tion-building expert,
The Beginner’s Guide
goes to great lengths to explain
that the United States should possess extensive experience in the field of sta-
bilization and reconstruction operations. As Dobbins notes, military inter-
ventions and their related endeavours have emerged from the ashes of the
Cold War as a major enterprise of both the United States and the United Na-
tions. In the period from 1945 to 1989, the United States embarked on a mil-
itary intervention on average once every 10 years, but it now conducts such
operations roughly biannually. United Nations peacekeeping operations have
accelerated even more dramatically since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The UN
conducted an average of one new peacekeeping mission every four years dur-
ing the Cold War. Today, that figure stands at one operation every six months.
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