Successful stabilization depends on the new regime developing a political network that distributes power and patronage throughout the nation, whether the power network manifests in democratic form, feudal form, or colonial form. In a decentralized regime, local leaders throughout the nation can compete for a share of power even if they are not affiliated with the faction that controls national power at the center. Thus, a decentralized system can create a broad class of local leaders in all communities who have a positive expected stake in defending the new political system. Yet the leading collaborators of a stabilization operation may endorse a system of narrow political centralization. Paradoxically, for the sake of expediency and convenience, such centralization may initially be welcomed by foreign interveners, although it may itself be destabilizing. Planning for a successful state-building stability mission requires a more expansive perspective and an understanding of the stability impact of the constitutional distribution of power.