What’s Left of the Failed States Debate?

Public order and essential services are often lacking in fragile states. But it is naïve to sweepingly blame such problems on the absence of a strong state as the sole cause. In many contexts, non-governmental actors successfully provide basic public services like infrastructure and public security in coordination with the central government. Bangladesh became a development success story after the central government gave non-governmental organizations a free hand in running the country’s educational infrastructure. Since a lack of schooling for young girls is a proven risk factor for armed conflict, this move decreased the risk of conflict.

If, where and when public services, including security, are provided in a fair manner is not solely a matter of state capacity or stability. Hubs for illicit trade in arms and narcotics, human trafficking and cybercrime can also be found in states that are considered respected members of the international community. And it is often the governments of wealthy nations that cannot or do not want to be the providers of all public goods to all parts of the population. This becomes obvious during exceptional situations such as natural disasters or pandemics: police functions are outsourced to for-profit security companies, the private possession of weapons is poorly regulated, critical infrastructure like railway networks, power plants and hospitals remain underfunded, and access to those services is unequal.

“Failed States Pose a Threat to Germany and Europe”

In some cases. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, the United States and its allies were convinced that failed states are ideal hiding places for terrorists and thus constituted security threats. This narrative spread rapidly and proved very persistent. But the reality is that ideological, financial and logistical support for terrorists mostly comes from rich, functioning states.

A collapse of state structures is often followed by periods of lawlessness in which different groups compete for power – often using armed violence. To spread and enforce their own model of public order, regional branches of the Islamic State have carried out terrorist attacks in countries like Iraq and Syria and throughout the Sahel. This illustrates that unstable states first and foremost pose a threat to the people living within their borders, who directly face the resulting violence, crime and disorder.

It is true that extremists also spread their ideology worldwide via YouTube and messenger services to recruit new followers for attacks in Europe and beyond. But only a small fraction of victims of violence are harmed in terrorist attacks. And the majority of terrorist attacks committed in Europe were carried out by European citizens with various ideological motivations.

Still, foreign and security policymakers view the collapse of state structures as one of the biggest global threats. Armed violence bears the risk of spilling over to neighboring countries or entire regions, and of escalating to the point of war between great powers. But whether or not this happens depends to a large extent on the behavior of other, mostly stable states. Major interstate conflicts arise when outside actors interfere in internal conflicts and the international community fails to reach a peace agreement – such as in Syria and Yemen.

When large territories are no longer governed effectively, it becomes more difficult to tackle global security challenges like the spread of the novel coronavirus or to enforce international arms control agreements. The international system is based on states as the primary units of order. In diplomacy states are natural counterparts. In the absence of recognized governments, there are no legitimate partners for diplomatic relations. Negotiations and peace agreements become much harder when the relationship between parties at the negotiating table are a constant bone of contention. 

However, limited capacity of the central state does not necessarily result in chaos. Somalia, where the central government has failed to effectively rule its national territory and population for decades, is considered one of the most fragile states in the world. But the autonomous region of Somaliland, a self-declared but not internationally recognized state, holds democratic elections and maintains control over its territory. While basic service provision is supported by international and local aid organizations, governance in Somaliland functions more effectively than in the rest of Somalia. 

A closer look at differences within a country is essential for assessing security threats, but far too often this falls to the wayside. By focusing on recognized state structures, the international community at times undermines its own efforts toward effective problem solving. 

“The West is to Blame for Failed States”

It shares a large part of the responsibility. Especially when looking at the African continent, it is hard to deny that centuries of colonial rule and exploitation are causes for the instability that plagues many African states. Haphazardly drawn borders, which randomly divided established settlements, along with the division of people into ethnic groups based on pseudo-scientific criteria and their corresponding political instrumentalization still hamper peaceful coexistence to this day. 

Colonial states in much of Africa were designed for exploitation by European rulers. Administrative structures served as tools of oppression, not legitimate forms of representation or even participation. Functioning and legitimate local institutions were destroyed. Today, differences in the stability of African states can be traced back to their respective experiences under different forms of colonial rule.

Even after these countries have been formally independent for decades, dependencies on the West and Global North persist. West African states, for example, still struggle to gain complete control over their monetary and fiscal policies, which are influenced by France. What is more, by choosing to support autocratic regimes in the quest for stability, Western governments continue to undermine the development of free and democratic societies. 

The weapons used in wars and state-sponsored repression often come from Western countries like Germany or the United States. And it is the West that facilitates slavery and war economies and hampers economic development – through the EU’s trade and agricultural policies, the exploitation of natural resources like diamonds or rare earths by Western trade networks and corporations, and generally through Western mass consumerism. 

Of course, many problems of contemporary weak states are homemade. While international financial institutions and donor countries often limit these states’ ability to independently manage their economies, the pressure for liberalization plays into the hands of kleptocratic elites who prevent the investment of state revenue into infrastructure projects and public goods for the population. Instead of fighting their money laundering schemes, Europe grants corrupt elites and their billions access to European financial centers – much to the detriment of the local populations. While European politicians sharply criticize such corruption in public statements, they ultimately dismiss it as an unfixable defect of non-Western societies. 

And not only former Western colonial powers take advantage of weaker states. Actors like China, Russia or the United Arab Emirates also benefit from the money laundering, lack of natural resources regulation and flourishing arms business that characterize many weak states – and thus prevent effective global solutions. 

While Europe continues to be perplexed by violence and state failure as drivers of migration, its coarse attempts at controlling migration and terrorism create new rifts within historically developed cross-border economies. Instead of contributing to prosperity and thus reducing migration, European governments restrict cross-border movements and inadvertently further the cycle of poverty and repression. So the West is far from acting in a conflict-sensitive and historically conscious manner and from promoting peace and development in unstable regions to its best ability.

“There is No Way to Help Failed States”

There is, but there is also a serious risk of doing more harm than good. Afghanistan is representative for all the countries where Western intervenors catastrophically overestimated their influence, their understanding of the situation on the ground, and their own legitimacy. Those who act like a bull in a china shop should not be surprised by the mess.

But given the risks associated with escalating violence and a rising number of displaced people, doing nothing is hardly a viable option. The German government and many of its partners understandably want to see the wars in their neighborhood end and make sure that cornerstones of international law, such as those regulating weapons of mass destruction or prohibiting the killing of civilians, are respected. 

Once a state has collapsed, the road back to functioning institutions is a long one. Still, examples like Germany after 1945, Korea, Vietnam, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Liberia, or Sierra Leone all show that (re)construction under varying conditions is possible. The group of states we see today has not always been around and will likely not remain in place forever. When governments founded the United Nations almost 75 years ago, they designed its Charter to prevent violent disputes on state sovereignty. But the post-World War II period is full of examples of states being destroyed and reconstructed. 

In times of acute crisis, humanitarian support and diplomacy can help. The aftermath of natural disasters and conflicts require financial assistance from international funds. Economic cooperation facilitates reintegration into the global economy. In the fight against diseases such as Malaria, countries benefit from targeted external support. But if outside actors’ assistance permanently substitutes public services, they can weaken existing structures. 

To support other countries in times of crisis, some governments try to counteract immediate state collapse through stabilization measures. The German government, for example, uses civilian, police and military means to achieve a rapid and clearly visible improvement in living conditions for civilians and thus increase public trust in local authorities. In Iraq and Mali, Germany supports the respective security sector with training and equipment to further sustainable development, create the conditions for a reconciliation of the conflict parties, and even lay the foundations for democracy. While these are noble goals, reaching them will require a long-term effort – and a lack of detailed studies means that the jury is still out on whether this approach actually works.

Securing basic services for vulnerable populations can buy time and political capital to help resolve underlying differences, but nothing more. Stabilization alone cannot cure structural problems like corruption, an inequitable distribution of resources, or the exclusion of minorities – much less end the external support for conflict parties by major powers that has prolonged and exacerbated conflicts like the one in Syria.

As a result, international organizations, the EU and European governments are increasingly focusing on conflict prevention. Beyond diplomatic mediation, their goal is to foster long-term societal resilience through democratic participation and flexible institutions. This is a difficult balancing act with a number of conflicting goals: stabilization, respect for locally developed structures, and promoting democracy and human rights as the basis for sustainable peace.

Any success of European conflict prevention efforts will be difficult – if not impossible – to prove definitively. Experience shows that when a conflict breaks out, oversimplified explanations spread even quicker than the violence itself. But when violence is avoided, nothing happens. Prevention measures usually go unseen and investments in conflict prevention do not result in tangible political wins. Instead, they call for close observation, tolerance for complexity and, above all, patience. Understanding what would have happened under different circumstances requires tracing complicated processes with the help of counterfactuals, scenarios and simulations – a tedious exercise that is often complicated by a lack of a sound empirical basis.

Despite the arguably limited influence that external actors have, the possible return on investments in conflict prevention is high: prevention is significantly cheaper than the sum of humanitarian, stabilization and reconstruction efforts – not to mention that it is a moral responsibility. 

A German version of this commentary was originally published in the May/​June 2020 edition of Internationale Politik.