Lord Ashdown's excellent analysis poses two challenging quandaries - one for liberals and one for democrats.

First, for liberals, when the 'International Community' administers a territory, how much right do we have to confront and change local traditions? Three reasons why we should: it can help us entrench international norms (eg on gender equality, perhaps against local custom); it can disrupt local thogocrats; and it can enable the consistent application of the rule of law. But this conflicts with our instincts to favour local solutions, and value 'cultural diversity'. Fear of cultural colonisialism was the main gripe of some Lib Dems against the Iraq war. So, is there a clear position on how much we should challenge local customs, a position around which all Liberal Democrats can unite?

Second, for democrats, democracy is about much more than elections. This is why Paddy's suggestion that early elections set back democracy in Bosnia is coherant. So, the question is, is there a clear, detailed and workable definition of democracy, applicable in a wide range of circumstances, so international administrators can know what they're aiming at?

I think we need to be very careful with interfering with a country's culture.

I would emphasise the rule of law with clear guidelines about what is acceptable and strict rules for tackling violence.

When the underlying culture is part of the problem good communication with local leaders and consent seem to be the key concepts.

I wasn't at Paddy's talk so am unsure how he argued that early elections are a hinderance to democracy.

Democracy is rule of the people by the people for the people and so a dose of direct democracy in the form of petitions, referenda and panels might be preferable, depending on the local culture, before embarking on representative democracy.

The key thing, in my view, is involvement so people feel they have a part in what is proposed. Most people respond favourably to being asked for their opinion as long as it is actually taken into account, and is seen to be, by them.

Balancing nation building with fears of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism is a touchy subject that is quite relevant for our generation.

One must distinguish between democracy and the Western perception of democracy. Perhaps there are jus cogens ideas of justice, equality, etc. However, in order to even begin to implement the rule of law that the previous authors have discussed, the necessary infrastructure must be there. By infrastructure, I mean everything from roads and buildings to schools to civil society. Many of the nations that we have ventured into for nation building purposes lack a developed and active civil society. And on a most simple level, how can you have democracy when there are no buildings for voting centres or roads for people to travel to voting centres.

Further, there are difficult problems such as corruption, patron-client relationships, and often a complete lack of transparency in these fledgling democracies we aim to develop. Post-colonial nations that often suffer from the type of strife that requires intervention in some sense fall victim to problems of corruption. In many cases, this is because the colonial legacy is just that—one of patronage.

Often it seems that nation building is impossible when we see countries falling apart no matter how much help the West seems to give. Perhaps, nation building is impossible, but it is the guidance and help with developing the tools for stable government and democracy that we can offer to these nations. Developed nations can clear developing states of foreign debt, thereby freeing up funds to be used towards health and education. They can help curb the AIDS rate which is rampant in sub-Saharan Africa. They can place stricter regulations on the small-arms trade thereby limiting the number of AK47s that end up, for example, in the hands of child soldiers in Uganda.

While we may not have the power to literally build democratic nations, we have the power to give these developing nations the tools and at least the prospect and hope to develop into stable democracies.

I agree that cultural imperialism and neo-colonialism is an important subject especially as the third wave of democratization is inextricable from globalisation. It may be more productive to examine failures of nation-building aswell as successes and consider each instance as individual rather then adopt a generic blueprint. Especially a blueprint based on Western neo-liberal standards of success ('good governace' for whom, the West/Capitalism or the developing world).

Perhaps the key point is the extent to which building stable democracies actually builds nations or extends the reach of Western powers. Surely building stable nations rather than democracies is of more importance, especially when it is easy for the western world to forget the nation when focusing on the requirements of liberal democracy. So I guess the question is that raised by phirst above, to what extent does democracy depend on certain cultural and historical circumstances (as with the history of the development of democrcy in the west)For me a countries own culture and history cannot be ignored when intervening in its state.

Here Ashdown's use of citizens is important. Are those in developing countries citizens of a global world only when democratic? Is global citizenship granted only to those in democratic countries? Or do developing nations contain citizens, granted on ethnic rather than civil identies?

To assume that 'we' have cultural superiority over other methods of governance ignores both the democratic dilemmas facing our country (see anti-terror legislation, the retrenchment of the welfare state)and is also to assume that the West is benevolent when it comes to guiding nation building. One only has to look at the influence of the IMF and the failure to establish a fair international trading system to find the origins infuence of less benign reasons for nation building.

Clearly there is a real need to rebuild nations but where the line is drawn between helping stablise countries and enforcing 'our' western standards and international monetary market on others is unclear.