The Art of Seeing Like a State: State-Building in Afghanistan, the Congo, and Beyond

This paper considers the implications of James Scott’s Seeing Like a State (1998) and The Art of Not Being Governed (2009) for state-building efforts in Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In Seeing Like a State, Scott warns of the problems associated with top-down planning efforts to improve the human condition. In The Art of Not Being Governed, Scott discusses the ‘art’ of state avoidance and self-governance. These works have important insights for contemporary statebuilding processes and we explore some of the applications in the context of Afghanistan and the DRC. We conclude with a discussion of the implications for current and future state-building efforts. JEL Codes: B52, B53, O2