Imperial(ilstisch)e Kriege und Kantonisierung oder: die Internationalisierung peripherer Staaten

Abstract

Abstract

Since the cantonisation of Bosnia and since the Kosovo war an old colonial concept, the so called nation building, promoted itself to a conditio sine qua non of the analysis of the peripheral state. Strengthened by the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq this anachronistic concept was uncritically acquired, in order to mediate conceptually and to research empirically allegedly processes of „democratisation“, „state- and nationbuilding“. On the contrary to the thesis of „nation-building“, my argument is that we have to do heir with a form of the „internationalization of peripheral state“ and that the „cantonisation“ represents a specific form of this internationalization, which differs in principle from the forms of the internationalization of the metropolitan state. I discuss this problematic and illustrate my theses on the basis of the example of Iraq.