I would think that you would need to dowel it first. Otherwise the dowels would mess up your fondant.
When cake tiers are stacked, dowels take the weight of the layer above. Cakes are dowelled after the last layer of cake covering [frosting or rolled fondant] so that the final cake covering is not squashed.
The top of each dowel is level with the surface of the cake covering - the cakeboard of the layer above rests on the dowel not the cake.
If the dowels were inserted before covering, the thickness of the unapplied covering would have to be taken into consideration before trimming the dowels to size.......
I dowel after fondant is on.
To avoid making dents and/or messing up the fondant, I take a small paring knife and trace the line around the dowel where it will be inserted, then gently cut that piece of fondant out (a tiny circle) and remove it, then insert the dowel and cut it to the right height. Works like a charm and leaves no ruined fondant surface.
You only dowel the layers that will have another tier on top of them. So your top layer does not need any dowels in it, unless you have a heavy topper.
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