State-building in the context of "State formation"

A provisional government, also called an interim, emergency, or transitional government is a temporary government formed to manage a period of transition, often following state collapse, revolution, civil war, or some combination thereof.

Provisional governments generally come to power in connection with the sudden, catastrophic and irreversible collapse of the previous political system, resulting from revolution, coup d'état, civil war, military defeat so catastrophic as to result in political disintegration, economic collapse, the death of a strongman ruler, or other circumstances which have resulted in a nonfunctional national government. Questions of democratic transition and state-building are often fundamental to the formation and policies of such governments.

Environmental determinism (also known as climatic determinism or geographical determinism) is the study of how the physical environment predisposes societies and states towards particular economic or social developmental (or even more generally, cultural) trajectories. Jared Diamond, Jeffrey Herbst, Ian Morris, and other social scientists sparked a revival of the theory during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This "neo-environmental determinism" school of thought examines how geographic and ecological forces influence state-building, economic development, and institutions. While archaic versions of the geographic interpretation were used to encourage colonialism and eurocentrism, modern figures like Diamond use this approach to reject the racism in these explanations. Diamond argues that European powers were able to colonize, due to unique advantages bestowed by their environment, as opposed to any kind of inherent superiority.

Harris Mylonas (Greek: Χάρης Μυλωνάς) is a Greek American political scientist. He is an Associate Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University, a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the editor-in-chief for Nationalities Papers, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Cambridge University Press.

Mylonas has contributed to the ideas of nationalism, nation-building, state-building, fifth column politics and multilateralism through different publications and articles. Mylonas has also contributed to the analysis of the Greek government-debt crisis.

The natural borders of France (French: Frontières naturelles de la France) were a nationalist model of French state-building developed during the French Revolution that called for the expansion of France's borders to prominent natural boundaries. These boundaries correspond to the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean Sea, the Pyrenees and the Atlantic Ocean.

According to the historian Peter Sahlins, "as a model of French identity, it formed part of a constitutive myth of the state."

Western European colonialism and colonization was the Western European policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over other societies and territories, founding a colony, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically. For example, colonial policies, such as the type of rule implemented, the nature of investments, and identity of the colonizers, are cited as impacting postcolonial states. Examination of the state-building process, economic development, and cultural norms and mores shows the direct and indirect consequences of colonialism on the postcolonial states. It has been estimated that Britain and France traced almost 50% of the entire length of today's international boundaries as a result of British and French imperialism.