Nation-building as necessary effort in fragile states

Policies to bring stability in fragile states focus almost exclusively on building institutions and systems to get governance right. Building the state is seen as sufficient for a stable and legitimate state.These policies have a white spot for the question what makes people belong to the nation-state. This book argues that issues of identity, culture, religion are crucial to create a sense of belonging and social cohesion as the foundation of a stable nation-state. International community should take nationbuilding on its agenda as complementary to peace-building and state-building to contribute tot he solution of fragility in countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan and DRC. CATALOGUSTEKST CHICAGO: Policies intended to bring stability to fragile states tend to focus almost exclusively on building institutions and systems to get governance right. Simply building the state is often seen as sufficient for making it stable and legitimate. But policies like these, René Grotenhuis shows in this book, ignore the question of what makes people belong to a nation-state, arguing that issues of identity, culture, and religion are crucial to creating the sense of belonging and social cohesion that a stable nation-state requires.