Assessing state failure: Implications for theory and policy

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 24, Issue 3, 2003, Pages 407-427

  Carment, David ^a  

^a CARLETON UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DEVELOPMENT FAILURE; DEVELOPMENT THEORY;

EID: 14644409322     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0143659032000084384     Document Type: Article

References (112)

1. 'Unprecedented power, colliding ambitions', The Economist, 26 September 2002.
2. Michael Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging, Toronto: Viking Press, 1993, p 8.
3. Robert D Kaplan, 'The coming anarchy', Atlantic Monthly, February, 1994.
4. Robert H Dorff, 'Democratization and failed states: The challenge of ungovernability', Parameters, Summer, 1996, pp 17-31.
5. The consequences of not acting early are obvious. Effective peace building, essentially picking up the pieces after a violent conflict has torn a country or region apart, is a costly and time consuming process.
6. Charles Alao identifies a number of interrelated factors. These include weak state structures and their inability to cope with post-cold war transition; deteriorating economic conditions; and the rise in ethnic conflict. See Charles Alao, 'The problem of the failed state in Africa', in Muthiah Alagappa & Takashi lnoguchi, (eds), International Security Management and the United Nations (Tokyo: 1999, pp 83-102.
7. See also Gerald B Helman & Steven R Ratner, 'Saving failed states', Foreign Policy, Brookings, 89, 1992/93, pp 3-20.
8. From a video transcript, 'Small arms and failed states', 24 October 1999, at http://www.cdi.org/adm/1307/transcript.html.
9. To understand what. a failed state is, it is important to understand a successful state. At its core, a successful state provides for the basic security of its population, protecting it from both internal and external threats. It also has the capacity to provide for the health and welfare of its population. See http://www.cdi.org/adm/1307/ transcript.html.
10. State Failure Task Force Report, 30 November 1995. Prepared by Daniel C Esty, Jack A Goldstone, Ted Robert Gurr, Barbara Harff, Marc Levy, Geoffrey D Dabelko. Pamela T Surko, and Alan N Unger. According to the Task Force a failed state is one that is 'utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community' (p 1). Narrowly defined, however, 'state failures consist of instances in which central state authority collapses for several years (ibid.). However, since fewer than 20 such episodes have occurred during the past 40 years, statistical analysis is difficult. Therefore the Task Force broadened the concept of state failure to include a wider range of civil conflicts, political crises and massive violations of human rights that are typically associated with state breakdown. In fine with such a broad definition the Task Force isolated four Kinds of state failure. (1) revolutionary wars, (2) ethnic wars, (3) mass killings, and (4) adverse or disruptive regime change.
11. See http://www.cdi.org,/adm/1307/transcript.html.
12. See also Pauline H Baker & John A Ausink, 'State collapse and ethnic violence: Toward a predictive model', Parameters, Spring, 1996, pp 19-31.
13. See Ted Robert Gurr, 'The internationalization of protracted communal conflicts since 1945: Which groups, where and how?'. in Manus Midlarsky (ed), The Internationalization of Communal Strife London: 1992, pp 4-24
14. and Michael Brecher & Jonathon Wilkenfeld, 'The ethnic dimension of international crises', in David Carment & Patrick James (eds), Wars in the Midst of Peace: The Inter-national Politics of Ethnic Conflict, Pittsburgh, PA: Routledge, 1997, pp 164-193.
15. Ted Robert Gurr (ed), Handbook of Political Conflict: Theory and Research, New York: 1980
16. and Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Society, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968.
17. Naomi Chazan (ed), Irredentism and International Politics, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1991.
18. Wallensteen argues that social stratification most of the time leads to the break down of states. Using data on how civil wars end since 1945, Wallensteen argues that state break-up, when well managed, does not have to be as disruptive as often thought. Peter Wallensteen, 'State failure, ethnocracy and democracy: New conceptions of governance', paper presented at the Failed States Conference, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 25-27 February 1998.
19. There are several distinct causal mechanisms: (1) the internalisation of external conflict in which weaker states invite outside involvement. For example, external involvement exacerbates internal conflict to the extent that the poorer the nation, the more invidious the inequalities, and the more dependent the state is, the more susceptible it is to violence internally. (2) The externalisation of internal conflict involving: A) a shift in the dyadic balance of power, or b) external intervention. See Dina Zinnes, "Why war? Evidence on the outbreak of international conflict', in Gurr, Handbook of Political Conflict, pp 331-360
20. Jack S Levy, 'The diversionary theory of war: A critique'. in Manus I Midlarsky (ed), Handbook of War Studies, Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman, 1989, pp 259-288
21. Patrick James, 'Conflict and cohesion: A review of the literature and recommendations for future research', Cooperation and Conflict, 22, 1987, pp 21-33.
22. Ted Robert Gurr, 'Resolving ethnopolitical conflicts: Exit, autonomy or access', in Ted Robert Gurr et.al, Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethnopolitical Conflicts, Washington, DC: USIP Press, 1993
23. Peter Calvert, The Foreign Policies of New States, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986
24. and Edward E Azar & Chung-in Moon, National Security in the Third World: The Management of Internal and External Threats, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1988,
25. See Azar & Chung-in Moon, National Security in the Third World. The absence of interstate ethnic strife in South America supports this conclusion. Although homogeneous, these states also have lower levels of internal cleavage and very low levels of transnational affinities.
26. According to Holm, 'the international system is created on the basis of the norms from the dominant states concerning the idea of the state, legitimacy, and, the legal framework for the state. The weak states are unable to live up to these norms. The weak states represent both a system failure and a system responsibility. Hans-Henrik Holm, 'The responsibility that will not go away: Weak states in the international system', paper presented at the Failed States Conference, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 25-27 February 1998.
27. Robert Rosh, 'Ethnic cleavages as a component of global military expenditures', Journal of Peace Research, 33, 1989, pp 21-30
28. Mohammed Ayoob, 'State-making, state-breaking and state failure: explaining the roots of "Third World" insecurity'. in Luc van de Goor, Kumar Rupesinghe & Paul Sciarone (eds), Between Development and Destruction, London: Palgrave, 1996, pp 67-86.
29. Mohammed Ayoob, 'State-making, state-breaking and state failure' examines the Western model of state making (in the l7th and 18th centuries) and tries to draw a parallel with what is currently taking place in the 'Third World'. Ayoob also examines the twin concepts of ethno-nationalism and self-determination, which relate to state failure. According to Ayoob, state failure 'predominates when institutions collapse, when existing institutions are not fulfilling people's basic needs and when satisfactory alternative structures are not readily available' (p 80).
30. Ibid. Ayoob's main argument is to link the emergence of state failure to superpower competition in the 'Third World'.
31. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of Berkeley Press. 1985).
32. Rene Lemarchand, 'Patterns of state collapse and reconstruction in Central Africa: Reflections on the crisis in the Great. Lakes, Afrika Spectrum, 32, 1997, pp 173-193.
33. I William Zartman, 'Introduction: Posing the problem of state collapse, in Zartman (ed), Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995, pp 1-11.
34. Ibid. According to Zartman, such scenarios lack clear turning points and warning signals. None-theless, failure is a slippery slope that has some notable characteristics towards the end and these sometimes serve as warning signals of imminent collapse He identifies five such characteristic: The devolution of power to the peripheries because the centre fights among itself; the withering away of power from the central government; government malfunctions by avoiding necessary but difficult choices; the incumbents practise only defensive politics. and the ultimate danger - the lost of control by the centre over its own agents, pp 1-11.
35. Ibid. Zartman suggests that state collapse arises because of the poor performance of the state's functions - representation, interest articulation, output efficiency, etc.
36. Charles Alao, 'The problem of the failed state in Africa', pp 83-102.
37. Jeffrey Herbst, 'Responding to state failure in Africa', International Security, 21, 1996/97, pp 120-144.
38. Chadwick F Alger, 'Failed states and the failure of states: self-determination, states, nations and global govemance', paper presented at the Failed States Conference, Purdue University, 25-27 February 1998.
39. The absence of confrontations and conflicts between classes may have prevented the growth of liberalism, with its ideological and legal emphasis on individual rights and liberties. The European models of democracy dissolved quickly as a foreign arrangement.
40. John Burton, 'The history of international conflict resolution', in Edward E Azar & John W Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, Boulder, CO: Lynne Riermen. 1986, pp 28-40
41. Edward E Azar, The Management of Protracted Social Conflict, Aldershot: Dartmouth Press, 1990
42. Ted Robert Gurr, 'Peoples against states: Ethnopolitical conflict and the changing world system', International Studies Quarterly, 38, 1994, pp 347-377
43. and Anthony D Smith, 'The ethnic sources of nationalism', Survival, 35, 1993, pp 48-64.
44. Ted Robert Gurr & Raymond Duvall, 'Civil conflict in the 1960s: A reciprocal theoretical system with parameter estimates', Comparative Political Studies, 6, 1973, p 160.
45. For a full analysis see Dane Rowlands & Troy Joseph, 'The International Monetary Fund, civil strife and conflict prevention', in David Carment & Albrecht Schnabel, Conflict Prevention: Grand Illusion or Path to Peace?, Tokyo: UNV Press, 2003
46. Ted Robert Gurr, 'Why minorities rebel - a global analysis of communal mobilization and conflict since 1945', International Political Science Review, 14 1993, pp 161-201
47. Gurr & Duvall, 'Civil conflict in the 1960s'
48. and Augustine Kpsowa & J Craig Jenkins, 'The structural sources of military coups in postcolonial Africa, 1957-1984', American Journal of Sociology, 99, 1993, pp 126-163.
49. See Nicolas Van de Walle, 'The economic correlates of state collapse', paper presented at a Conference on State Failure, Harvard University, 2001
50. and Stephen Stedman, 'Conflict and conciliation in sub-Saharan Africa', in Michael E Brown (ed), The International Dimensions of Internal Conflict, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1996, p 243.
51. Anthony D Smith, 'Conflict and collective identity: Class, ethnic and nation', in Azar & Burton (eds), International Conflict Resolution, pp 63-84.
52. See also Michael Nicholson, 'Failing states, failing systems', paper presented at the Failed States Conference, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 25-28 February 1998.
53. Holm, 'The responsibility that will not go away', examines what he calls the 'new international system' and its attendant negative consequences for the survival of weak states. He looks at the recent construction of a 'bifocal' system with wealthy nations at the top and poor nations at the bottom and, consequently, the emergence of two zones: That of peace and that of war. While grappling with the instability that has been created by this bifocal system, the international system was further affected by the emergence of globalisation, which has overshadowed the bifocal system, creating further instability.
54. Chris Allen, 'Warfare, endemic violence & state collapse in Africa', Review of African Political Economy, 81. 1999, pp 367-384. Allen examines the patterns of violence and warfare in Africa as well as the characteristics of what he calls the 'new violence', including barbarism and the economics of war.
55. Ibid. Allen uses the term 'spoils politics' to describe what is at play in Africa. 'Spoils politics occurs when the primary goal of those competing for political office or power is self-enrichment' (p 377). Prolonged spoils lead to terminal spoils and ultimately to state collapse. At the terminal stages of spoils politics, where state failure sets in, die main political features include the decline or disappearance of state functions and offices: Abusive use of remainiug institutions, notably the army and police; the contraction, fragmentation or disappearance of central authority; and a relationship between the state and society that consists largely of mutual avoidance or violence and resource extraction. Allied to the political features are a number of economic features: General contractions of the economy leading to its decline or the emergence of a 'second economy'. The social consequences of all these, according to Allen, is endemic violence.
56. Stephen Ryan, 'Explaining ethnic conflict: The neglected international dimension', Review of International Studies, 14, 1988, 161-177.
57. Azar & Burton. International Conflict Resolution. Boulder. CO: Lyinne Rienner. 1986.
58. See Atul Kohli, Democracy and Discontent: India's Growing Crisis of Governability, Cambridge: 1990.
59. Huntington, Political Order. The gap between tradition and modernity marks a transitional stage characterised by anomie and the decay and corrosive impact of economic development on established beliefs and behaviours.
60. Mark Lichbach, The Rebel's Dilemma, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1995, pp 279-280.
61. Baker & Ausink, 'State collapse and ethnic violence'.
62. Douglas H Dearth, 'Failed states: An international conundrum', Defense Intelligence Journal, 5, 1996, pp 119-130. Failed states are a matter of concern for two reasons. The first is formalistic - because the state system has for the past 350 years characterised the organisation of the international system, when states fail, especially in large numbers, the entire system is thought to be in danger. The second reason is humanitarian - state failure results in widespread human suffering.
63. Vernon Hewitt, The International New Politics of South Asia, Manchester: University of Manchester Press, 1997, p 198.
64. For example, Kohli shows that, since 1967, India's political system has undergone a decline in order and authority. This decline has arisen as a result of two factors: The emergence of political parties based on ethnic identity and the diminishing capacity of secular elites at the state centre to influence the political behaviour of those below them. Kohli, Democracy and Discontent
65. and Nirvikar Singh,'Cultural conflict in India: Punjab and Kashmir', in Ronnie Lipschutz & Beverly Crawford (eds), The Myth of Ethnic Conflict, Berkeley, CA: University of Berkeley Press, 1999, 352-360.
66. See Paul Brass, The Politics of India Since Independence, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
67. Wallensteen, 'State failure, ethnocracy and democracy'. In examining the roots of state failure, Wallensteen argues that it has to do with state building. He examines the issue of ethnocracy and the dissolution of empires and argues that the ethnisation of society can be a cause of its falling apart. Ethnocracy - rule by one ethnic group - instils in all social groups an understanding that ethnic security is associated with state power.
68. Ibid.
69. See Rajat Ganguly (ed), Ethnic Conflict and Secessionism in Asia: Causes, Dynamics. Solutions, New York: Sage, 2003.
70. Jean-Germain Gros, 'Towards a taxonomy of failed states in the New World Order: Decaying Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda and Haiti', Third World Quarterly, 17, 1996, p 456. Ultimately, as Gros suggests, the factors in state failure also include poor economic performance; lack of social synergy; authoritarianism; militarism; and environmental degradation caused by rampant population growth. According to Gros, since the degree of 'stateness' varies considerably across most cases of 'state failure', rather than putting all cases together as instances of failure, it makes sense to situate them along a continuum. Based on this argument, Gros presents a taxonomy of five types of failed state. These are the anarchic state - where there is no central government; the phantom or mirage state - where a semblance of authority exists; the anaemic state - where the energy of the state has been sapped by counter-insurgency; the captured state-where there is a strong central authority but one that is captured by members of insecure elites to frustrate rival elites; and states that failed in vitro (aborted states) - before the process of state formation was consolidated.
71. Lemarchand, 'Patterns of state collapse and reconstruction in Central Africa'.
72. According to Lemarchand, long before Rwanda and Burundi hit 'collapse' they were faced with demographic pressures which they could not contain, among other things, land shortage, a key ingredient of ethnic strife in that region. Another important factor, of relevance to all the countries in the region, is the shrinking of the political bases of state authority.
73. Ethnic elites often intentionally promote feelings of cultural and economic inequality for political gain in the hope of establishing a strong, unified base for action. The strategy often involves tapping economic grievances and re-framing them in the discourse of ethno-nationalism. Where culturally divergent groups inhabit a common society, there is a 'structural imperative in which one group becomes subordinate to another. This is especially common when ethnic cleavages are reinforced by differences in class and status or when labour markets are divided along ethnic lines. The inequalities often result in exploitation, discrimination and blocked mobility for members of subordinate groups, which create the grievances, feelings of relative deprivation and, by implication, the motives for ethnic mobilisation and violence.
74. Barry Posen, 'The security dilemma and ethnic conflict', Survival, 35, 1993, pp 27-47.
75. Lipschutz & Crawford, The Myth of Ethnic Conflict, p 36.
76. When inter-group violence ensues, states take control through the provision of policing and similar functions. The degree of enforcement available to states is variable. At one end of the spectrum are 'police states' in which all forms of political conflict are discouraged. Frequent success in the use of state-organised violence (for example to achieve national consolidation and suppress internal challenges) leads to the development of police states
77. These include military regimes and one-party states. In states that have little or no experience of managing ethnic tensions, and where constraints are low, hegemonial exchange and its more coercive variant, the control model, are the usual alternatives. Control models differ from hegemonial-exchange models to the extent that there is a superordinate ethnic group in power. The elites of these groups have developed the techniques of coercion, depoliticisation and co-option in order to maintain power. Control becomes institutionalised and usually arises when the state is faced with imminent collapse.
78. See David A Lake & Donald Rothchild (eds), The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear Diffiision and Escalation., Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
79. Russell Hardin, One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995, p 143. Research that combines insights from primordialist, political-economy and instrumental perspectives generally focuses on economic and political disparities between the state centre and minority. Conflict between dominant groups and minorities usually involves issues of national identity; the expansion and centralisation of nationalist political authority, which creates a competitive arena for state controlled resources; and the recognition of ethnicity as a basis for resource competition and political access.
80. Establishing a credible reputation for responding to internal violence is important, and, arguably, military measures have a greater chance of lowering pay-offs from violence than less vigorous forms of intervention such as sanctions.
81. Mary O McCarthy, 'Potential humanitarian crises: The warning process and roles for intelligence', in Susanne Schmeidl & Howard Adelman (eds), Synergy in Early Warning Conference Proceedings, Toronto, 15-18 March 1997, pp 15-16.
82. Forecasting is about the likelihood an event will happen. By itself it has no strategic connotation or purpose. Forecasting can be either passive (about events over which we have no control) or active (about events over which we have some control). For example, weather forecasts are a form of passive forecasting: They do not tell us, when there is a 50% chance of rain, whether it will rain half the day, or whether it will it rain every half hour or whether it will it cover half the region. To be policy-relevant, forecasting needs to take on additional qualities. It must be diagnostic, by which emphasis is placed on describing how and why things work as they do, and it must be prescriptive, offering explicit recommendations to policy makers faced with certain kinds of problems.
83. Dipak Gupta, 'An early warning about forecasts: Oracle to academics' in Schmeidl & Adelman, Synergy in Early Warning Conference Proceedings, pp 375-396.
84. I would like to thank Luc van de Goor of the Clingendael Institute for insights on the conceptual organisation of the these initiatives. Listed acronyms, organisations and urls are current as of June 2001 and include: Pioom - the Dutch acronym for Interdisciplinary Research on Root Causes of Human Rights Violations (http://www.fsw.leidenuniv.nl/www/w3_,liswo/pioom.htm)
85. CIFP - Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (http://www.carleton.ca/cifp))
86. HEWS - Humanitarian Early Warning System (http://www.reliefweb.int/ ocha_ol/programs/pad/hews.html)
87. ICB - International Crisis Behaviour Data Project (http://web.missouri.edu/~polsjjh/ICB/)
88. FIRST - Facts on International. Relations and Security Trends (http://www.sipri.se/projects/database/index.html)
89. Democide Research Homepage - http://www2.hawaii.edu//~rummel/
90. Uppsala's Conflict Database - http://Www.pcr.uu.se/data.htm
91. IOM - International Organization for Migration (http://www.iom.int/)
92. Refworld - http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld/country/cdr/cdrsom2.htm
93. GIEWS - Global Information and Early Warning System (http://www.fao.org/ giews/english/giewse.htm)
94. The UN-based EarthWatch - http://www.unep.ch/earthw.html
95. HazardNet - http://hoshi.cic.sfu.ca/~hazard/
96. GEWS-Global Early Warning System (http://fugimodel.t.soka.ac.jp/FUGI/ chapter6/chapter6.html)
97. GEDS-Global Event Data System (http://geds.umd.edu/geds/) (this system has been replaced by a more comprehensive integrated database, The Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR), under the direction of Monty Marshall. at CIDCM, Maryland University
98. PANDA - Protocol for the Assessment of Nonviolent Direct Action (http://www-vdc.fas.harvard.edu/efia/pnscs/panda.htm)
99. KEDS - Kansas Events Data System (http://www.ukans.edu/~keds/)
100. Political Risk Services - http://www.polrisk.com/
101. CEWS - Conflict Early Warning Systems (http://www.usc.edu/dept/LAS/ir/ cis/cews/)
102. PCIA- Peace and Conflict Impact Assessment (http://www.idrc.ca/peace/)
103. USAID's Impact Assessment - Participatory Country Program Strategic Planning, and Performance Monitoring, Field Manual, USAiD/BHR
104. FAST - Early Recognition of Tension and Fact Finding (http://www.swisspeace.ch/)
105. ICG - International Crisis Group (http://www.intl-crisis-group.org/)
106. CIPDD - Caucasian Institute for Peace, Democracy and Development (http://www.armazi.demon.co.uk/cipdd.html).
107. A leading indicator approach would use previously identified relationships or sequences of events to identify the precursors of instability or conflict. The basis for this approach holds that there are sequencing regularities that allow the forecaster to discover what variable to focus on in in order to project a trend. The major disadvantage of a leading indicator approach is that, while it can often predict the direction of change, it gives no indication of its magnitude For an excellent example, see the work of Sean O'Brien 'Anticipating the good, the bad and the ugly: An early warning approach to conflict instability analysis, 1975-2015', paper presented at the annual APSA meeting, San Francisco, 2001.
108. For an example of predictions using the Decision Insights model, see Patrick James & Michael Lusztig, 'Assessing the reliability of predictions on the future of Quebec', in David Carment, John F Stack, Jr & Frank Harvey (eds), The International Politics of Quebec Secession: State making and State Breaking in North America, Wesport CT: Praeger, 2001
109. In order to establish an integrated framework for analysing the emergence of violent conflict and conflict management, it is necessary to understand how each given type of crisis typically develops and which possible avoidance efforts can be effective. In general terms, the factors that contribute to conflict escalation are categorised as structural factors (root causes), accelerators (precipitators/ facilitators), or triggers (catalysing events). Structural Factors: background conditions that form the preconditions of crisis situations, such as systematic political exclusion, inherent economic inequities, lack of adequate and responsive institutions, the presence of ethnic minorities, resource exhaustion, and over-dependence on international trade. Accelerators: 'feedback events that rapidly increase the level of significance of the most volatile of the general conditions, but may also signify system-breakdown or basic changes in political causality'. Triggers: Sudden events that act as catalysts igniting a crisis or conflict, such as the assas-sin-ation of a leader, election fraud, a political scandal.
110. Portions of this part of the paper are based on the risk assessment and conflict indicators approach developed by CIFP (www.carleton.ca/cifp)
111. Will Moore & Ted R Gurr, 'Assessing risks of ethnopolitical rebellion in the year 2000: Three empirical approaches', in Schmeidl & Adelman, Synergy in Early Warning Conference Proceedings, pp 45-70. Definitional and operationalisation issues are always problematic when dealing with events that are controversial, rare and not well understood..
112. John Cockell, 'Early warning and the United Nations system', in Carment & Schnabel, Conflict Prevention.