Introduction

Since the early 1990s the international community has been increasingly adopting liberal state-building as part of a wider liberal peacebuilding strategy for addressing the plethora of problems facing post-conflict societies (Chandler 2006; Chesterman 2005; Kostić 2007; MacGinty 2006; Paris 2004). In that sense, liberal state-building is viewed as a peacebuilding measure with the aim to construct or reconstruct the institutions of governance capable of providing citizens with physical and economic security (cf. Paris 2004; Richmond 2006). One of the guiding assumptions has been that the presence of strong state institutions would facilitate macro-economic growth and provide economic and societal security of its citizens (Paris 2004). Such measures, in combinations with strong state institutions and functioning infrastructure, are supposed to bring economic well-being that would in return strengthen the legitimacy of the state among its citizens by means of democratic elections, thus bringing about political moderation and societal integration in previously fragmented societies (Paris 2004).

However, while it has been shown that this type of liberal state- and nation-building fails short of bringing societal integration in multiethnic societies (Kostić 2007, 2008), it does not include in its framework of analysis the environmental problems of post-conflict societies. Economic development projects such as large hydro projects or opencast mining for lignite – as an element of a broader state-building exercise – lead to environmental stress for the communities, and can further exacerbate inter-communal incompatibilities (Swain and Krampe 2011).