Building State Capacity Locally: The United Nations in Nepal

• In Event: Promoting Peace? The Past, Present, and Future of International Interventions

Abstract

How the international community addresses the security threats and humanitarian crises of fragile states is a top foreign policy concern. But can international interventions build states? Most existing scholarship focuses on national state capacity, debating the feasibility of local level interventions due to the risks of resource capture and monitoring challenges. I argue that conflict creates a legitimacy gap between national and community governments, where community-level institutions have greater legitimacy due to their better information on local needs and official preferences aligned with those of citizens. To test my theory, I compiled a novel geocoded dataset of village-level statebuilding projects by the United Nations in post-civil war Nepal called the Village Development Programme (VDP) and conducted semi-structured interviews of program recipients. My findings support my theory, showing that the VDP is associated with an increase in local institutional capacity but has no relationship with national institutional capacity. This project contributes to the ongoing discussion on international interventions by highlighting the importance and feasibility of working with local governments, as well as being the first extensive analysis of the United Nations Development Programme's statebuilding work. Together, these contributions will point to more effective strategies for international interventions.

Author

• Annamaria Prati, Washington University in St. Louis