Fallacies of Democratic State-Building

Abstract This paper criticizes the epistemic foundations of democratic state-building, which are derived from a model political transitions according to liberal institutions will transform hitherto authoritarian and troubled country into more prosperous stable society and, therefore, foreign interventions establish these realistic worthy investments, provided they properly planned based on knowledge what has worked elsewhere. expectation is upon two epistemological premises. The first premise, linearity, that social institutional change exhibits identifiable input–output relations connecting socioeconomic conditions outcomes. second ergodicity, relations, inferred past samples, provide reliable probabilistic projections about future outcomes, can guide focus policy interventions. Drawing study complex systems, indicates why premises offer flawed conception radical large-scale interventions, such as tend generate unintended consequences rather than effect.