International Relations and International Security

1
International Relations and International Security

• Lecture 9
• State Failure and
• Its Regional Context

2
Overview

• The Levels-of-Analysis Approach
• Defining State Failure
• Political Science and Developmental Perspectives
• Failed/Fragile States Indices
• Political Science and Developmental Perspectives
• Fund for Peace Failed States Index
• Regional Clusters of State Failure
• Africa, Central Asia, Western Balkans, Middle
  East, Caucasus
• Level Connections

3
The Levels-of-Analysis Approach

• State failure is a multi-dimensional phenomenon
• Its explanation has to consider factors beyond
  and within the individual state affected
• Levels of analysis of the causes, consequences
  and potential remedies of state failure include
• Individual and group, state and non-state actors
  exist at each level
• Individuals are often singled out as a separate
  level of analysis
• Issues and structures cutting across levels
  present opportunities and constraints for these
  actors

4
The Levels-of-Analysis Approach

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Defining State Failure

• Political science perspectives
• State failure is a gradual process
• Four broad categories weak, failing, failed and
  collapsed states
• Rotberg (2004)
• Failed states are tense, deeply conflicted,
  dangerous and contested bitterly by warring
  factions government troops battle armed
  revolts led by one or more rivals whose roots
  lie in ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other
  intercommunal enmity
• A collapsed state is a rare and extreme version
  of a failed state which exhibits a vacuum of
  authority
• State Failure Task Force (2000)
• One of four categories of events revolutionary
  wars, ethnic wars, adverse regime changes, and
  genocides and politicides

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Defining State Failure

• Political science perspectives
• Jenne (2003)
• fragmented states state failure is limited to
  certain contested stretches of territory which
  the central government does not control and to
  which it does not extend its provision of public
  goods, or does so in a limited fashion only
• Schneckener (2004)
• Three dimensions of state failure security,
  welfare and legitimacy
• Milliken and Krause (2003)
• State failure failure to provide security and
  public order, legitimate representation, and
  wealth or welfare
• State collapse extreme disintegration of public
  authority and the metamorphosis of societies into
  a battlefield of all against all

7
Defining State Failure

• Development Perspectives
• Term fragile states describes range of
  phenomena associated with state weakness and
  failure
• state collapse
• loss of territorial control
• low administrative capacity
• political instability
• neo-patrimonial politics
• conflict
• repressive polities

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Defining State Failure

• Development Perspectives
• UK Department for International Development
• Fragile states are those where the government
  cannot or will not deliver core functions to the
  majority of its people, including the poor
• The most important functions of the state for
  poverty reduction are territorial control, safety
  and security, capacity to manage public
  resources, delivery of basic services, and the
  ability to protect and support the ways in which
  the poorest people sustain themselves.
• World Bank
• Fragile states are characterized by a
  debilitating combination of weak governance,
  policies and institutions
• Picciotta et al. (2005)
• Fragile states cannot manage the combined
  demands of security and development

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Failed/Fragile States Indices

• Indicators differ across indices
• Political Science security, welfare, legitimacy
• Development perspective capacity/willingness
  or capacity/resilience
• Fund for Peace Failed States Index
• Mounting Demographic Pressures Massive Movement
  of Refugees and IDPs Chronic and Sustained Human
  Flight
• Legacy of Vengeance-seeking Group Grievance Rise
  of Factionalized Elites
• Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines
  Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline
• Criminalization or Delegitimization of the State
  Progressive Deterioration of State Services
• Widespread Violation of Human Rights Security
  Apparatus as "State within a State"
• Intervention of Other States or External Actors

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Regional Clusters of State Failure
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Regional Clusters of State Failure

• Central and South Asia
• Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan,
  Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan
• Western Balkans
• Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo,
  Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro
• Middle East
• Egypt, Iraq, Israel/Palestinian Territories,
  Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, and Syria
• Caucasus
• Armenia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia

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Regional Dimensions of State Failure

• Durable patterns of amity and enmity between
  state and non-state actors and relevant military
  capability
• Transnational conflicts forming mutually
  reinforcing linkages through
• Military, political, economic, criminal and
  social networks
• Transborder movements
• Politically organized, regionally concentrated
  groups contesting the legitimacy of existing
  boundaries
• Environmental degradation
• Resource scarcity

13
Level Connections

• Domestic factors affect regional factors
• State capacity to exercise effective control over
  their territory determined by GDP, social
  cohesion, nature of the political system, ethnic
  demography, settlement patterns, resource
  endowment, urbanisation, etc.
• Global factors also have impact on regional
  factors
• Direct and indirect through their influence on
  domestic factors
• Penetration of a state failure region by great
  powers, international and regional organisations
• Bolster capacity of individual states to cope
  with threats
• Issue displacement (conflict, crime,
  environmental problems)
• Religious fundamentalism
• International terrorism

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International Relations and International Security

• Lecture 9
• State Failure and
• Its Regional Context