The number of countries in which state structures have collapsed seems to be growing. But is it really? Are these so-called failed states a threat to global security? And is there an antidote? Five hypotheses, put to the test.
“The List of Failed States is Growing Longer”
Not necessarily. Very few states have completely failed. In international law, a state has ‘failed’ when its authority has largely disintegrated and it can no longer carry out essential duties. Recent examples include Syria and Yemen – but even in these countries, both of which are embroiled in ongoing wars, the state is still able to perform basic functions in parts of its territory.
In any case, the blanket diagnosis of state failure has been out of fashion for more than a decade. In 2001, it still served as a justification for the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, which was supposed to result in a liberal and democratic Afghan state. Almost 20 years later, this endeavor has proven a complete disaster – thanks to the immense hubris of the interveners and their inability to comprehend the diverse challenges arising from political order in contexts where scarcity and violence are more widespread than prosperity.
Instead of being labeled ‘failed’, such places are now commonly considered ‘fragile’. And even the most fragile among them – which are rarely entire states, but more often sub-state areas or regions with limited statehood – have neither failed irretrievably nor are they waiting to be rescued by the West.
Fragility is considered to be the opposite of state stability on a continuum between a well-functioning and completely absent state. As World Bank expert Michael Woolcock once put it in reference to Tolstoy, every fragile state is fragile in its own way. While one state may lack authority, another may suffer from a lack of legitimacy and acceptance in the eyes of its population. Elsewhere, a government’s capacity to supply basic public services may be limited. And the situation often varies considerably between different parts of the same country.
Global indices such as the Fragile States Index (FSI) categorize states according to a cross-section of several symptoms of fragility. Their scores often produce unexpected neighbors in the global rankings. Take, for example, Turkey and Tanzania: while the two countries both received similar FSI scores between 2017 and 2020, that instability is rooted in very different causes and comes with varying consequences. While the main problem in Tanzania is low state capacity, the index attests Turkey limited legitimacy as a result of widespread repression in the country.
To account for such nuances, governments and international organizations have refined their analytical tools. The German government, for example, distinguishes between multiple ‘fragility profiles’ based on a state’s levels of authority, legitimacy and capacity. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development measures fragility in terms of a state’s economy, environment, politics, and security. Since 2011, the World Bank refers to fragile ‘situations’ rather than fragile or failed states; and in 2020, it chose to sharpen its focus on contexts marked by violent conflict or high social and institutional fragility.
From the vantage point of development policy, this makes perfect sense. According to World Bank estimates, at least half of all people affected by extreme poverty will live in fragile situations by 2030, and those areas do not always neatly map onto national borders. The Global Fragility Act, which was recently passed by the US Congress, also refers to existing rankings for fragility and conflict risks, but stresses the need for more nuanced analyses of the causes of state failure and violence.
Detailed fragility assessments rightly point to the fact that elements of fragility exist almost everywhere. These range from a rule of criminal gangs or rebel groups in certain sub-state areas to widespread poverty and a lack of basic public services in countries where governments are not going anywhere any time soon. They can also take the form of a temporary loss of state control in crisis situations (think Hurricane Katrina in the United States or the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic). But this does not mean that the world as a whole has become more unstable.
Accurately evaluating the risk of state collapse and conflict and proposing remedies requires a combination of expert assessments, scenarios and predictive analyses on the basis of geo-located event data. Such analytical capacities are being developed in the European Union and some member states like Germany, but there is still plenty of room for improvement to prevent and mitigate crises.
“Strong States Guarantee Peace and Security”
That’s a misconception. It is true that populations are particularly vulnerable without the protection of a capable state authority. But often it is these very state authorities who pose the greatest threat to their citizens. Well-organized state apparatuses are especially effective in carrying out repression and serious human rights violations — including genocides — against political opponents and minorities.
That is why the contemporary understanding of security not only includes the security of states, but the safety of people and the protection of their rights. Domestic conflicts come with the potential to escalate and even destabilize the international order. The war in Syria is a prime example for how security threats to populations on the ground can directly impact neighboring countries or entire regions – in this case the Middle East and Europe. Such a holistic understanding of security also reflects the fact that wars are not the principal danger to people’s safety. Violent crime accounts for global casualty numbers that are several times higher than those caused by armed conflicts.