Reinforcing the Lessons of Postwar Reconstruction

Abstract

International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction. By Richard Caplan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 304 pp., $99.00 (ISBN: 0-19-926345-0). In recent years, the international policy community has been notably and understandably preoccupied with the effort to find the best ways to organize and use international resources to repair war-torn societies. This preoccupation has been evidenced by the variety of documents and research reports that have appeared, including such high profile studies as the 2000 report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations (also known as the Brahimi Report) and the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, Responsibility to Protect . By addressing themes familiar to the literatures on postconflict reconstruction, peace support operations, and war-torn societies, Richard Caplan's International Governance of War-Torn Territories: Rule and Reconstruction reflects this preoccupation. With examples drawn from the Balkans and East Timor, Caplan analyzes the impact of what he calls “international administrations” in such areas as public order and internal security, refugees and internally displaced persons, civil administration, political institution-building, and economic reconstruction and development. He looks, in particular, at their success with respect to planning operations, exercising executive authority, ensuring accountability, developing exit strategies, and enhancing their effectiveness. Although Caplan does not claim to offer a primary argument or defend a thesis, his objectives are to create a new way of analyzing the international community's efforts to rebuild war-torn societies and to reclassify these efforts as either “international transitional authorities” or “international administration.” The shortcomings of the book are located here. Rather than suggesting a convincingly new approach or offering …