Failed state
A failed state is a state that has lost its ability to fulfill fundamental security and development functions, lacking effective control over its territory and borders. Common characteristics of a failed state include a government incapable of tax collection, law enforcement, security assurance, territorial control, political or civil office staffing, and infrastructure maintenance. When this happens, likely consequences include widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of state and non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, sharp economic decline, and military intervention from both within and outside the state.
The term was initially applied in the 1990s to characterize the civil war in Somalia. The country descended into disorder following a coup that ousted its dictator Siad Barre in 1991, leading to internal conflicts among the country's clans. In the early 2020s, Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Libya, Mali, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen have all been described as failed states.
Various metrics have been developed to describe the level of governance of states, with significant variation among authorities regarding the specific level of government control needed to consider a state as failed. In 2023, the Fund for Peace think tank identified 12 countries in its most susceptible categories on the Fragile States Index. Formally designating a state as "failed" can be a controversial decision with significant geopolitical implications.
Definition and issues
The term "failed state" originated in the 1990s, particularly in the context of Somalia's turmoil after the overthrow of its dictator Siad Barre in 1991. The phrase gained prominence during the American-led intervention in Somalia in 1992. It was used to express concerns about the potential collapse of poor states into chaotic anarchy after the end of the Cold War, as highlighted by Robert Kaplan's depiction of chaos in Liberia and Sierra Leone and his warning of a "coming anarchy" in various global regions.According to the political theories of Max Weber, a state is defined as maintaining a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders. When this is broken, the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state. The difficulty of determining whether a government maintains "a monopoly on the legitimate use of force", which includes the problems of the definition of "legitimate", means it is not clear when a state can be said to have "failed". The problem of legitimacy can be solved by understanding what Weber intended by it. Weber explains that only the state has the means of production necessary for physical violence. This means that the state does not require legitimacy for achieving a monopoly on having the means of violence, but will need one if it needs to use it.
Typically, the term means that the state has been rendered ineffective and is not able to enforce its laws uniformly or provide basic goods and services to its citizens. The conclusion that a state is failing or has failed can be drawn from the observation of a variety of characteristics and combinations thereof. Examples of such characteristics include, but are not limited to, the presence of an insurgency, extreme political corruption, overwhelming crime rates suggestive of an incapacitated police force, an impenetrable and ineffective bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, and consolidation of power by regional actors such that it rivals or eliminates the influence of national authorities. Other factors of perception may be involved. A derived concept of "failed cities" has also been launched, based on the notion that while a state may function in general, polities at the substate level may collapse in terms of infrastructure, economy, and social policy. Certain areas or cities may even fall outside state control, becoming a de facto ungoverned part of the state.
No consistent or quantitative definition of a "failed state" exists; the subjective nature of the indicators that are used to infer state failure have led to an ambiguous understanding of the term. Some scholars focus on the capacity and effectiveness of the government to determine whether a state is failed. Other indices such as the Fund for Peace's Fragile States Index employ assessments of the democratic character of a state's institutions as a means of determining its degree of failure. Other scholars focus their argument on the legitimacy of the state, the nature of the state, the growth of criminal violence, the economic extractive institutions, or the states' capacity to control its territory. Robert H. Bates refers to state failure as the "implosion of the state", where the state transforms "into an instrument of predation" and effectively loses its monopoly on the means of force.
Measurement
The measurement methods of state failure are generally divided into the quantitative and qualitative approach.Quantitative approach
Quantitative measurement of state failure often focuses on the developmental level of the state, the Human Development Index. Additionally, regional evaluation might give concrete details about the level of democracy such as the Report of Democratic Development in Latin America.Fragile States Index
The Fragile States Index, first published in 2005, measures failed state qualities. Edited by the magazine Foreign Policy, the ranking examines 178 countries based on analytical research of the Conflict Assessment System Tool of the Fund for Peace. In the 2015 report, written by the Fund for Peace, there are three groupings: social, economic, and political with 12 overall indicators.Social indicators:
- Demographic pressures
- Refugees or internally displaced persons
- Group grievance
- Human flight and brain drain
- Uneven economic development
- Poverty and economic decline
- State legitimacy
- Public services
- Human rights and rule of law
- Security apparatus
- Factionalized elites
- External intervention
While the FSI is used in many pieces of research and makes the categorization of states more pragmatic, it often receives much criticism for several reasons:
- It does not include the Human Development Index to reach the final score but instead focuses on institutions to measure what are often also considered human aspects for development.
- It parallels the fragility or vulnerability of states with underdevelopment. This comparison firstly assumes that underdevelopment creates vulnerability, thus assuming that if a state is "developed" it is stable or sustainable.
- It measures the failure of a state without including the progress of other areas outside the sphere of the 12 indicators, thus excluding important measures of development such as the decline in child mortality rates, and increased access to clean water sources and medication, amongst others.
Qualitative approach
The qualitative approach embraces theoretical frameworks. Normally, this type of measurement applies stage models to allow the categorization of states. In three to five stages, researchers show state failure as a process. Notable researchers, among others, are Robert I. Rotberg in the Anglo-American and Ulrich Schneckener in the German sphere.Schneckener's 2006 stage model defines three core elements, monopoly of violence, legitimacy, and rule of law. The typology is based on the security first logic and thus, shows the relevance of the monopoly of violence in comparison to the other two while at the same time acting as the precondition for a functioning state. His four statehood types are: consolidated and consolidating states, weak states, failing, and collapsed/failed states. The first type is directed towards functioning states; all core functions of the state are functioning in the long term. In weak states, the monopoly of force is still intact, but the other two areas show serious deficits. Failing states lack the monopoly of force, while the other areas function at least partially. Finally, collapsed or failed states are dominated by parastatal structures characterized by actors trying to create a certain internal order, but the state cannot sufficiently serve the three core elements.
Both research approaches show some irregularities. While the quantitative approach lacks transparency concerning its indicators and their balancing in the evaluation process of countries, the qualitative approach shows a diversity of different foci. One of the major discrepancies is the question of whether all the stages have to be taken continuously or if a state can skip one phase. Schneckener stresses that his model should actually not be interpreted as a stage model as, in his opinion, states do not necessarily undergo every stage. Rotberg's model underlies an ordinal logic and thus, implies that the state failure process is a chronological chain of phases.
Theoretical mechanisms for state development
State development through war-making
argues that war-making was an indispensable aspect of state development in Europe through the following interdependent functions:- War-making—rulers eliminate external rivals
- State-making—rulers eliminate internal rivals and establish control over their territories
- Protection—rulers bring about benefit to their clients by eliminating their external rivals and guaranteeing their rights
- Extraction—rulers extract more tax from their subjects
Similarly, Herbst adds that a war might be the only chance to strengthen an extraction capability since it forced rulers to risk their political lives for extra revenue and forced subjects to consent to pay more tax. It is also important for state development because the increased revenue would not return to its original level even after the wars end. Contrary to European states, however, he also pointed out that most Third World states lacked external threats and had not waged interstate wars, implying that these states are unlikely to take similar steps in the future.