Failed states

Temporary Obstacles to Democratic Diffusion or Fundamental Holes in the World Political Map

Bibliographic Data

ID5817954
AuthorsBrennan Kraxberger (Christopher Newport University, corresponding author), Brennan M Kraxberger
Year2007
Volume28
Issue6
Pages1055-1071
Publication date2007-08-22
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThird World Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0143-6597 • E-ISSN: 1360-2241
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/01436590701507420
OpenAlexW2063981751
LanguageEN
Citations received15
References cited8

In parts of the developing world the fundamental requisite of democracy-stateness-is in recession. This paper engages the literature on failed states with regard to the implications for global democratic diffusion. The heart of the paper summarises and analyses the four main frameworks for assessing and responding to failed states. The status quo framework regards failed states as sick patients that can be revived. This state revival framework has a mixed track record, however, and many critics. The 'shared sovereignty' framework advocates quasi-permanent intervention in the most difficult cases of state failure. A third approach argues for the recognition of de facto sovereignty and the restructuring of de jure international boundaries when necessary. A fourth framework insists on a historically grounded analysis of modern statehood as a failed global project. The article's final section surveys the stateness - democracy nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. Notes 1 S Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968; and F Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: Free Press, 1992. 2 RI Rotberg, 'Failed states in a world of terror', Foreign Affairs, 81 (4), 2002, pp 127 - 141; and B Kraxberger, 'The United States and Africa: shifting geopolitics in an "Age of Terror"', Africa Today, 52 (1), 2005, pp 47 - 68. 3 SM Lipset, 'Some social requisites of democracy: economic development and political legitimacy', American Political Science Review, 53, 1959, pp 69 - 105. 4 Quoted in SD Krasner, 'The case for shared sovereignty', Journal of Democracy, 16 (1), 2005, p 71. 5 Lipset, 'Some social requisites of democracy', pp 86 - 87, 91. 6 N Bermeo, 'What the democratization literature says-or doesn't say-about postwar democratization', Global Governance, 9, 2003, p 169. 7 J Milliken & K Krause, 'State failure, state collapse, and state reconstruction: concepts, lessons and strategies', Development and Change, 33 (5), 2002, pp 753 - 774. 8 AB Murphy, 'Territorial ideology and international conflict', in C Flint (ed), The Geography of War and Peace, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004, pp 280 - 296. 9 IW 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, p 1. 10 RI Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states: breakdown, prevention, and repair', in Rotberg (ed), When States Fail: Causes and Consequences, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004, p 5 (emphasis in original). See also J Widner, 'State and statelessness in late twentieth-century Africa', Daedalus, 124 (3), 1995, pp 129 - 153. 11 Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states', pp 9 - 10 (emphasis in original). 12 F Fukuyama, 'The imperative of state-building', Journal of Democracy, 15 (2), 2004, p 21 (emphasis in original). 13 J Gros, 'Towards a taxonomy of failed states in the New World Order: decaying Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda and Haiti', Third World Quarterly, 17 (3), 1996, pp 455 - 472; and quotation from S Ellis, 'How to rebuild Africa', Foreign Affairs, 84 (5), 2005, pp 135 - 148. 14 C Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990 - 1990, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990. 15 M Ottaway, 'Rebuilding state institutions in collapsed states', Development and Change, 33 (5), 2002, p 1001. 16 Krasner, 'The case for shared sovereignty', pp 69, 73. 17 Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states', pp 46 - 49; and Fund for Peace, The Failed States Index (2004 and 2005 data), at http://www.fundforpeace.org/programs/fsi/fsindex.php, accessed 11 December 2006. 18 Freedom House, Freedom in the World, 2006, at http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=15&year=2006, accessed 15 December 2006. 19 Zartman, Collapsed States; Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states', pp 30 - 31; D Kew, 'Building democracy in 21st century Africa: two Africas, one solution', Whitehead Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, Winter/Spring, 2005, pp 149 - 161; and L Wantchekon, 'The paradox of "warlord" democracy: a theoretical investigation', American Political Science Review, 98 (1), 2004, pp 17 - 33. 20 C Clapham, 'The challenge to the state in a globalized world', Development and Change, 33 (5), 2002, p 778. 21 J Herbst, 'Let them fail: state failure in theory and practice-implications for policy', in Rotberg, When States Fail, p 308. 22 RH Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Third World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 23 For a review of the literature on resuscitating failed and collapsed states, see Ottaway, 'Rebuilding state institutions in collapsed states'. 24 Ibid, p 1002. 25 Fukuyama, 'The imperative of state-building'; M Duffield, 'Aid and complicity: the case of war-displaced southerners in the northern Sudan', Journal of Modern African Studies, 40 (1), 2002, pp 83 - 104; and Ellis, 'How to rebuild Africa'. 26 Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies; and Wantchekon, 'The paradox of "warlord" democracy'. 27 Bermeo, 'What the democratization literature says'; IW Zartman, 'Putting things back together', in Zartman, Collapsed States, p 271; and Ottaway, 'Rebuilding state institutions in collapsed states', p 1022. 28 Ellis, 'How to rebuild Africa'; and Ottaway, 'Rebuilding state institutions in collapsed states', p 1018. 29 Krasner, 'The case for shared sovereignty'; and F Fukuyama, 'Building democracy after conflict: "stateness" first', Journal of Democracy, 16 (1), 2005, pp 84 - 88. 30 N Ferguson, Colossus: The Rise and Fall of the American Empire, New York: Penguin, 2004. 31 Ellis, 'How to rebuild Africa'. 32 Krasner, 'The case for shared sovereignty', p 76. 33 Ibid, pp 77 - 78. 34 I Bannon & P Collier (eds), Natural Resources and Violent Conflict: Options and Actions, Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003; and JI Guyer, 'Briefing: The Chad - Cameroon petroleum and pipeline development project', African Affairs, 101 (402), 2002, pp 109 - 115. 35 Zartman, 'Putting things back together', pp 272 - 273. 36 Ellis, 'How to rebuild Africa'. 37 Jackson, Quasi-States. 38 Herbst, 'Let them fail', p 308. 39 J Herbst, 'Responding to state failure in Africa', International Security, 21 (3), 1996, pp 120 - 144; and Herbst, 'Let them fail'. 40 Herbst, 'Responding to state failure in Africa', p 144. 41 Ibid, p 142. 42 C Clapham, 'The local - global politics of state decay', in Rotberg, When States Fail, p 78. 43 Clapham, 'The challenge to the state in a globalized world'; and ibid. 44 Clapham, 'The challenge to the state in a globalized world', p 778. 45 See J Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998; JD Sidaway, 'Sovereign excesses? Portraying postcolonial sovereigntyscapes', Political Geography, 22 (2), 2003, pp 157 - 178; and Widner, 'State and statelessness in late-twentieth century Africa', pp 142 - 147. 46 Clapham, 'The local - global politics of state decay', p 81. Compare with Ferguson, Colossus, p xiii. 47 Clapham, 'The challenge to the state in a globalized world', p 789. 48 See J Iliffe, Africans: The History of a Continent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995; and E Colson, 'African society at the time of the scramble', in LH Gann & P Duignan (eds), Colonialism in Africa 1870 - 1960, Vol 1, The History and Politics of Colonialism 1870 - 1914, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969, pp 27 - 65. 49 YB Usman, 'The Federation of Nigeria and the lessons of the historical experiences of the peoples of Nigeria', in JI Elaigwu, PC Logams & HS Galadima (eds), Federalism and Nation Building in Nigeria, Abuja: National Council on Intergovernmental Relations, 1994, pp 13 - 19; and C Clapham, 'Boundaries and states in the new African order', in DC Bach (ed), Regionalisation in Africa: Integration and Disintegration, Oxford: James Currey, 1999, p 61. 50 J Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and Control, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. 51 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States; and S Berry, No Condition is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1993. 52 Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States. 53 Clapham, 'Boundaries and states in the new African order'. 54 Widner, 'State and statelessness in late-twentieth century Africa', pp 142 - 147. 55 Bermeo, 'What the democratization literature says', p 170. See also A Vines, 'Combating light weapons proliferation in West Africa', International Affairs, 81 (2), 2005, pp 341 - 360. 56 Clapham, 'The local - global politics of state decay', pp 84 - 85. 57 D Rothchild & JW Harbeson, 'The African state and state system in flux', in D Rothchild & JW Harbeson (eds), Africa in World Politics: The African State System in Flux, Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000, p 18. 58 Herbst, 'Let them fail', p 311. See also Clapham, 'The local - global politics of state decay', p 88; and Kew, 'Building democracy in 21st century Africa', p 159. 59 Rotberg, 'The failure and collapse of nation-states'; and Fund for Peace, The Failed States Index

Failed state · Restructuring · Sovereign state · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · Human Rights and Development · Political Conflict and Governance