There is no real consensus on the definition of a “failed state”; the subjective nature of indicators that are used to measure state failure have led to an ambiguous understanding of the term. Some scholars focus on the capacity and effectiveness of the government, to determine if a state has failed or not. Other indices, such as the Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index underline the democratic character of state institutions…
I read an article recently in a foreign journal, of the attributes of a failed state. Regrettably, Nigeria’s name featured twice among nations described as failed states.
It is left for readers to judge whether Nigeria is a failed state or not. All I know is that we are in a bad shape. Most of the blame for our present plight go to the political class in this country. I say most, not all. As they say in French an grand serieus, meaning, in all seriousness, we should not be where we are now. That was not our wish and dream in 1960. We could have done better, considering how endowed we are, in resources and man power.
According to the journal, “A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly. Likewise, when a nation weakens and its standard of living declines, it introduces the possibility of total governmental collapse. The Fund for Peace characterizes a failed state as having the following characteristics:
Loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein
Erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, inability to provide public services
Inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community.”
Common characteristics of a failing state include a central government that is so weak or ineffective that it has an inability to raise taxes or other forms of support, and has little practical control over much of its territory, and hence there is the non-provision of public services. When this happens, widespread corruption and criminality, the intervention of non-state actors, the appearance of refugees and the involuntary movement of populations, and sharp economic decline can occur.
The level of governmental control required to avoid being considered a failed state varies considerably amongst authorities. Furthermore, the declaration that a state has “failed” is generally controversial and, when made authoritatively, may carry significant geopolitical consequences.
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 (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, paramilitary groups, armed gangs, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and it becomes failed. 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 precisely when a state can be said to have “failed”. The problem of legitimacy can be solved by understanding what Weber intended by it. Weber clearly explains that only the state has the means of production necessary for physical violence (politics as vocation). This means that the state does not require legitimacy for achieving monopoly on having the means of violence (de facto), but will need one if it needs to use it (de jure).
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 because of (variously) high crime rates, insurgency, extreme political corruption, an impenetrable and ineffective bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, and cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield more power than the state over a certain area. 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 sub-state level may collapse in terms of infrastructure, the economy and social policy. Certain areas or cities may even fall outside state control, becoming a de facto ungoverned part of the state.
There is no real consensus on the definition of a “failed state”; the subjective nature of indicators that are used to measure state failure have led to an ambiguous understanding of the term. Some scholars focus on the capacity and effectiveness of the government, to determine if a state has failed or not. Other indices, such as the Fund for Peace’s Fragile States Index underline the democratic character of state institutions in order to determine its level of failure. Finally, other scholars focus their argument on the legitimacy of the state, on the nature of the state, on the growth of criminal violence in a state, on the economic extractive institutions, or on 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 it effectively loses its monopoly on the means of force.
As part of the debate about the definition of state failure, Charles T. Call (2010) attempts to abandon the concept of state failure altogether, as he argues that this promotes an unclear understanding of what state failure means. Indeed, one of the main contributions to the theorisation of the “failed-state” is the “gap framework” developed by Call (2010). This framework builds on his previous (2008) criticisms of ‘state failure’ as a concept used as a catch-all term for diverse states with varying problems and as a base and explanation for universal policy prescriptions. It unpacks the concept of “state failure” focusing on three gaps that the state is not able to provide when it is in the process of failure: capacity, when state institutions lack the ability to effectively deliver basic goods and services to its population; security, when the state is unable to secure its population under the threat of armed groups; and legitimacy, when a “significant portion of its political elites and society reject the rules regulating power and the accumulation and distribution of wealth. The “gap framework” seems to be more useful than other definitions. Instead of attempting to quantify the degree of failure of a state, the gap framework provides a three-dimensional scope useful to analyse the interplay between the government and the society in states in a more analytical way.
Call does not necessarily suggest that states that suffer from the challenges of the three gaps should be identified as failed states, but instead presents the gap idea as an alternative to the state failure concept as a whole. Although Call recognises that the gap concept in itself has limits, since states often face two or more of the gap challenges, his conceptual proposition presents a useful way for identifying the challenges within a society more precisely and the policy prescriptions that are more likely to be effective for external and international actors to implement.
A relevant contribution to the field of failed states and its attributes was made by J. Goldstone in his paper “Pathways to State Failure”. What makes him differfrom other definitions is the fact that, to him, a state is failed if it lost both its effectiveness and legitimacy. Effectiveness means the capability to carry out state functions, such as providing security or levying taxes. Legitimacy means the support of important groups of the population, and it is dissociated from democracy as a government/leader can be legitimate in the eyes of his people without being elected. Goldstone coupled pathways to state failure to his conception of a lack of both effectiveness and legitimacy. A state that retains one of the two aspects is not failed as such, however it is in great danger of failing soon if nothing is being done about these. Five possible pathways to state failure are:
1. Escalation of communal group (ethnic or religious) conflicts. Examples: Syria, Somalia, Myanmar, Nigeria, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Rwanda, Liberia, Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, South Sudan;
2. State predation (corrupt or crony corralling of resources at the expense of other groups). Examples: the Russian Federation, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Brazil, Philippines, Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, South Africa, North Korea, Saudi Arabia;
3. Regional or guerrilla rebellion. Examples: Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Turkey, Congo, Colombia, Vietnam;
4. Democratic collapse (leading to civil war or coup d’etat). Examples: Nigeria, Madagascar, Nepal;
5. Succession or reform crisis in authoritarian states. Examples: Indonesia under Suharto, Iran under the Shah, the Soviet Union under Gorbachev.
Although Goldstone identifies pathways to state failure, he is quick to warn about simplifying the issue. Often (re)-building either legitimacy or effectiveness implies a trade off with the other aspect of the state. Since these states are missing one of the two pillars to stability, it is dangerous to initiate such a trade off, as it takes time to rebuild trust from the population. Although state failure has been studied for decades by numerous scholars, it remains a contested concept vulnerable to political, ideological and economical agendas.
Eric Teniola, a former director in the Presidency, Writes from Lagos.
END
Be the first to comment