International Intervention and Local Politics

International peace- and state-building interventions have become ubiquitous in international politics since the 1990s, aiming to tackle the security problems stemming from the instability afflicting many developing states. Their frequent failures have prompted a shift towards analysing how the interaction between interveners and recipients shapes outcomes. This book critically assesses the rapidly growing literature in international relations and development studies on international intervention and local politics. It advances an innovative approach, placing the politics of scale at the core of the conflicts and compromises shaping the outcomes of international intervention. Different scales - local, national, international - privilege different interests, unevenly allocating power, resources and political opportunity structures. Interveners and recipients thus pursue scalar strategies and socio-political alliances that reinforce their power and marginalise rivals. This approach is harnessed towards examining three prominent case studies of international intervention - Aceh, Cambodia and Solomon Islands - with a focus on public administration reform.

Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Existing approaches to international intervention and local politics; 2. International intervention and the politics of scale; 3. Public administration reform and the politics of scale in Solomon Islands; 4. Public administration reform and the politics of scale in post-conflict Cambodia; 5. The politics of scale and the Aceh Government Transformation Programme; Conclusion; Notes; Bibliography; Index.

Shahar Hameiri is Associate Professor of International Politics and Associate Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland. He is co-author of Governing Borderless Threats (Cambridge, 2015) and has published in leading journals.
Caroline Hughes is Head of the Department of Peace Studies and International Development at the University of Bradford. She is the author of Dependent Communities: Aid and Politics in Cambodia and East Timor (2009) and The Political Economy of Cambodia's Transition, 1991–2001 (2003), and co-author of The Politics of Accountability in Southeast Asia (2014).
Fabio Scarpello is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University, Western Australia. His work has been published in journals such as International Studies Review, Contemporary Politics and the Journal of Contemporary Asia.