Development as State Consolidation: The Political Violence of Development in Peripheral Regions

Since the end of the Cold War, the triumph of liberalism has placed greater emphasis on the importance of good governance, sound institutions, economic development, and democracy as pathways to peacebuilding in fragile regions. This paper argues that state-building inspired by liberal peacebuilding fails to realize two critical dimensions: development as a form of infrastructural power, and state-led development as an inherently political state-building process. Development projects can also expand the state's territorial and administrative reach and thereby become instruments through which state authority is materially extended and consolidated. Baluchistan and West Papua provide empirical case studies in which state-led infrastructural developmentalism has ignited violence in peripheral regions.