Failed States and International Order:

Constructing a Post-Westphalian World

EDWARD NEWMAN

What is meant by ‘failed’ states in debates about international order, security and
threats to security? Does the concept of failed states, as constructed through academic
and policy discourse, undermine the ontological assumptions of international order
premised upon bounded, viable, rational states? Are weak or failed states a viable
category for analysis in international politics? Can we find characteristics in different
countries and regions that would allow us to define and measure degrees of state
strength, weakness and state failure in an objective and neutral manner? If weak or
failed states are a viable category, what are the implications for international order
and security? When is the failed state label used, and with what effect? Do failed
states represent a challenge to the Westphalian model of international politics?
Does the phenomenon of weak or failed states, as a challenge to this idealized
Westphalian normative system of Weberian states, in turn undermine the constitutive
order of the international system?
Alternatively, is the idea of failed states – and the popularity of focusing on this –
a reflection of Western anxieties over ‘new’ security threats since 9/11 and thus a
political construction – indeed an example of threat inflation?1 Does this focus on
failed states reflect Western bias over what a modern state should look like? Is the
failed state idea therefore about questioning the legitimacy of states which do not
conform to Western institutions of statehood, and a pretext for control and inter-
vention? Is it possible to make a distinction between the concept of failed states as
represented in discourse, and the reality of failed states – that is, to de-politicize
the concept?
The concept of failed states has attracted the attention of many analysts, and there
are three mains poles of opinion. Some scholars uncritically accept the concept as a
paradigm change in international politics with fundamental implications for how we
should think about and address insecurity. According to this, ‘weak and failing states
have arguably become the single most important problem for international order’.2
Secondly, other analysts are sceptical of the analytical value of the concept on epis-
temological grounds, arguing that it is difficult to objectively define, identify and
analyse failed states with methodological rigour. Finally, a further argument in the
literature rejects the idea of failed states as a politicized, ethnocentric, hegemonic
concept with interventionist connotations.
After exploring the idea of failed states and responding to some of these debates
this paper presents a different argument. In terms of how international order and
threats to security are perceived and constructed – which is not necessarily the
same as reality – failed states, in conjunction with the apparent decline of traditional
Contemporary Security Policy, Vol.30, No.3 (December 2009), pp.421– 443
ISSN 1352-3260 print/1743-8764 online
DOI: 10.1080/13523260903326479 # 2009 Taylor & Francis
422 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

inter-state threats, do represent a fundamental challenge to conventional thinking.

This is emblematic of a transition to a post-Westphalian world, at least for certain
audiences. However, the concept remains highly problematic, and the article con-
siders if and how the notion of failed states might be constructively taken forward.

Failed States, International Security, and Post-Westphalia

Policy and scholarship related to international conflict and security – and the percep-
tion of empirical reality – has traditionally reflected a Westphalian orientation.
According to this construction, the unit of analysis and referent object of security
are states, and threats are conceived in state-centric military terms; international
security privileges the independence and territorial integrity of legally sovereign
and (theoretically) equal states. Within this model the international system is
characterized by cooperation and conflict amongst viable and rational states in an
anarchic environment, reflecting pluralist norms of interaction in diplomacy, law
and multilateralism. A Westphalian system is therefore said to rest upon the sover-
eignty of political units, territoriality, and non-intervention.
Reality never conformed to this ideal type, and some parts of the world have
arguably never fully reflected the Westphalian model. The historical accuracy of
describing this model of international politics as Westphalian has also been
challenged.3 Yet prevailing norms of international law, foreign policy, diplomacy
and multilateralism – and indeed scholarship – have generally upheld the Westphalian
model. Despite differences in interpretation – between, for example, realist and liberal
visions of world order – the manner in which security, conflict, and threats to security
have been conceived and addressed has generally rested upon this statist, pluralist
ontology.
In the 21st century, by contrast, there is wide belief in certain circles that threats to
security are equally likely to come from failing or weak states, or even non-state
actors. In this context many scholars and policy analysts have drawn attention to
the dangers inherent in weak or failed states.4 The phenomenon of weak states
refers here to a situation where central government has a poor capacity to control
public order within its territory, is unable to consistently control its borders, cannot
reliably maintain viable public institutions or services, and is vulnerable to extra-
constitutional domestic challenges. Indications of this condition can be found in
poor levels of economic performance, human welfare, economic distribution, and
levels of conflict. State failure suggests that the government – if one exists – is com-
pletely unable to maintain public services, institutions, or authority, and that central
control over territory does not exist. State failure implies that central state authority
and control do not de facto exist.
According to this argument, in the conventional Westphalian vision of the world
threats to international security come primarily from powerful aggressive states; in
the 21st century threats are equally likely to come from failing or weak states, or
even non-state actors. International security therefore does not rest exclusively
upon a harmonious relationship amongst viable states, but also upon issues
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 423

traditionally seen as domestic, including social, economic and political factors, and
standards of governance.
This suggests that international conflict and security in the 21st century – in terms
of empirical patterns, and how these are studied and addressed in policy terms –
reflect a broader transformation to a post-Westphalian world. This is conceived of
as a world where notions of inviolable and equal state sovereignty – never actually
a reality but often respected as a norm – are breaking down; where states are no
longer the sole or even the most important actors in many areas of international
politics; where states cannot be assumed to be viable or autonomous agents; where
insecurity and conflict is primarily characterized by civil war, insurgency and state
failure, rather than inter-state war; where the distinction between domestic and
international politics is irreversibly blurred in terms of causes and impacts; where
the nature of, and responses to, security challenges hold implications for norms of
state sovereignty and territorial integrity; and where solidarist norms related to
governance and human rights are slowly – and selectively – transcending absolute
norms of sovereignty and non-interference.

The Failed State Debate

The failed state debate emerged as a result of the apparent discrepancy between the
de jure system of state sovereignty and the de facto nature of many states. Robert
Jackson’s work on the weakness of the state in the developing world was a milestone
in this debate. He defined this as negative sovereignty: a normative framework which
upholds the de jure legal sovereignty of states in the developing world (in contrast to
‘positive sovereignty’ in Europe which had emerged after states were consolidated).5
Such states, in theory, enjoy legal freedom from outside interference but they lack the
ability to meaningfully function or provide public services, including order. Jackson
described this as the ‘sovereignty game’: since the 1960s, new and weak ‘quasi-
states’ were incorporated into the international community even though they were
‘juridical more than empirical entities’.6 The ‘negative sovereignty game’ tolerates
and supports this as a result of the ‘uncritical and widespread faith in self-
determination or equal sovereignty’.7 As a result of norms such as anti-colonialism,
self-determination, democracy and egalitarianism, Jackson wrote in 1990 that such
states ‘enjoy an unqualified right to exist and high prospects for survival despite
their domestic disorganization and illegitimacy’.8
Following Jackson, theories of conflict and instability increasingly point to the
weakness of the state as a key factor in the onset of violent conflict – the ‘declining
state’9 or ‘the problem of the modern state’.10 Some scholars have put this into a
broad social context, suggesting fundamental changes in the nature of conflict.
This argument holds that ‘One of the most dramatic ways in which the post-Cold
War world differs from the Cold War international system is in the pattern of violence
that has been developing’.11 The weakening or undermining of the state is central to
this thesis, sometimes seen in the context of social and economic forces which erode
state capacity, authority, and public goods. This is characteristic of broader social and
424 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

political change reflected by state failure and social breakdown, and a breakdown of
public authority.
Globalization is sometimes seen as an important component of state weakness:
‘the processes known as globalization are breaking up the socio-economic divisions
that defined the patterns of politics which characterized the modern period. The new
type of warfare has to be understood in terms of this global dislocation.’12 According
to this argument, therefore, neoliberal economic forces have resulted in a weakening
of state capacity and a weakening of the provision of public goods in states which are
already fragile and often contested. So, ‘the “failure” of the state is accompanied by a
growing privatization of violence . . . the new wars are characterized by a multiplicity
of types of fighting units both public and private, state and non-state, or some kind of
mixture’.13 An alternative but complementary explanation for failed states is that
declining superpower support for states after the end of the Cold War – as the stra-
tegic importance of the developing world appeared to be in decline – undermined the
integrity of some such states. As Raimo Vayrynen stated, ‘The state is globally in
decline; in the industrial world, the state’s power is delegated and evaporating,
while especially in developing and transitional countries its monopoly over coercive
power is weakening’.14
Other analysts increasingly argued that the ‘negative sovereignty game’ was
under strain as the repercussions of state weakness and civil war posed security chal-
lenges regionally or even globally and their humanitarian consequences become
increasingly unacceptable. Throughout the 1990s the weak/failed states idea was
increasingly linked to international insecurity and the idea of non-traditional security
threats. Most notably, Helman and Ratner brought attention to this ‘disturbing new
phenomenon’ in an influential article in 1992 that sought to point out the security
implications of failed states and generate new thinking to address such situations.15
Alongside rogue states, its hyper-Westphalian antonym, failed states entered every-
day political discussion. Initially understood as Somalia-style disintegration, its
meaning was transformed after the attacks of 9/11 in turn brought enormous attention
to failed states as an existential threat. In policy circles and amongst some academics,
the concept justified emergency policies and if necessary the suspension of legal
sovereignty to respond to extreme danger. This prioritization of failed states has
evolved into a broader merging of security and development – and indeed the ‘secur-
itization’ of underdevelopment – prompting a critical response amongst scholars who
are sceptical of the concept.
So, there are essentially three different types of opinion on failed states. Firstly,
some analysts clearly accept the idea that failed states are a useful and identifiable
category for analysis, and that the dangers they represent fundamentally change
the way that we should think about and deal with security and insecurity.16 As US
Senator Chuck Hagel argues, existing and future challenges ‘come not from rival
global powers, but from weak states’.17 According to this thinking, underdevelop-
ment – and the pathologies associated with this – is essentially securitized. These
writers believe that fundamentally new methods are necessary to address failed
states: to respond to humanitarian crises but more importantly to respond to the secur-
ity threats inherent in these situations. These responses might include the temporary
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 425

suspension – or permanent supervision – of sovereignty to facilitate international

involvement to address the sources and manifestations of state failure, and the use
of military force when governments are unable or unwilling to control the pernicious
spillover effects of state weakness. According to this view, failed states undoubtedly
represent a paradigm change for international security, demanding new principles and
methods in response. As a result of this, an explosion of research and analysis has
sought to improve the methodology of defining and measuring weak and failed
states, identifying their impact, and developing the policy implications.
Secondly, other analysts are open-minded about the concept but feel that weak
and failed states are not analytically reliable because no objective definition, indi-
cators or agreement on their security implications exist. Moreover, given the
nature of such states, there are major difficulties in gathering reliable data. Sub-
sequently, the idea of failed states is not a solid base upon which to base policy or
undertake serious analysis.18 Within this camp scholars argue that the threat of failed
states is sometimes misunderstood or simply exaggerated, and so policies aimed at
strengthening homeland security based upon addressing or shoring up failed states are
misplaced, ineffective, or even dangerous.19 Others argue that failing, rather than
failed, states are the main cause for concern.20
Finally, other authors are highly critical of the concept of failed states and see in it
an ethnocentric and hegemonic political agenda aimed at de-legitimizing states that
fail to conform to the worldview of dominant states. From this viewpoint the failed
states idea is seen as a part of a broader agenda to reform developing countries, or
an attempt to demonize the ‘other’ as a pretext for control and intervention.21 Accord-
ing to this view, the concept of ‘failed’ states is politicized to such an extent that it is
analytically useless, but this is not just a result of unintentionally weak or spurious
methodology. Indeed, the critical approach views the concept of failed states –
and the policy implications that follow from this – as a political construction formu-
lated to serve interventionist hegemonic interests and specific political agendas.
According to the critical perspective, by exaggerating the threat of weak and failed
states and encouraging a militarized response, the concept of failed states is the
worst and most pernicious example of negative ‘securitization’ that exists.

Failed States: The Empirical Approach

Can we find characteristics in different countries that allow us to define and measure
degrees of state strength, weakness and state failure in an objective and neutral
manner, and perhaps overcome some of the controversies that exist in the study of
failed states? Can the failed states concept be employed in an analytically rigorous
manner for the purposes of scholarship and the formulation of policy? Is there
consensus on which are the weakest states? According to the literature on failed
states examples of this phenomenon at various times over the last 15 years include
Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Lebanon, Liberia, Myanmar, Nepal,
Philippines, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. Clearly a
wide variety of different states are discussed in the literature and in policy circles
as weak or failed, and so the idea of developing a clear definition of weak or failed
426 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

states which is generally applicable in different contexts, and with clear indictors, is
highly questionable. As a consequence, many scholars are sceptical about the concept
of weak or failed states as an analytical focus. Nevertheless, the interest in failed
states – and the research funding that has come from this interest – has resulted in
attempts to improve the analytical rigour of the concept. There have been a
number of attempts to improve the measurement and definition of state weakness
and failure, and attempts to rank states accordingly.
This analysis has generally been undertaken by policy-oriented scholars and
think-tanks, and it is often funded by public sources or government-related agencies.
The fact that there are so many major programmes which seek to do the same thing –
to understand and measure state weakness – indicates the interest which exists in the
topic, and the availability of funds to pursue such research. It also raises concerns
about the failed state industry, which clearly has an interest in ongoing worries
about the international hazards of failed and weak states, which might in turn raise
questions about the objectivity and results of some of these analyses. There are differ-
ences in how these research projects measure and define failed and weak statehood,
but most focus on manifestations of dysfunctional states – measured in terms of a
failure to manage conflict and the effects of conflict, an absence of public service
delivery and development, and poor governance – rather than the sources, and
most avoid identifying a single core characteristic. The rankings therefore tend to
focus on the (in)effectiveness of institutions, which rests upon a Weberian-state
ideal as the starting point; unsurprisingly, these approaches to define and measure
weak and failed statehood take the functioning, liberal (Western) state as the ideal,
and rank states in declining categories of effectiveness the further they stray from
this ideal. They also tend to conflate sources and manifestations of state failure –
and thus cause and effect – which is an analytical weakness that is difficult to over-
come. It is also worth noting that most of these analytical approaches tend to focus on
measureable, material indictors of state strength – suggesting that they are attempting
an objective, scientific approach – rather than an approach based upon value systems.
Their conclusions are compared in Table 1.
The Failed States Index, sponsored by the Fund for Peace, is a major attempt to
understand the causes, nature and impact of failed states. It identifies social indicators
(mounting demographic pressures, movement of refugees or internally displaced
persons, complex humanitarian emergencies, a legacy of vengeance-seeking group
grievance or group paranoia, and chronic and sustained human flight), economic indi-
cators (uneven economic development along group lines, severe economic decline),
and political indicators (criminalization and de-legitimization of the state, progress-
ive deterioration of public services, suspension or arbitrary application of the rule of
law and widespread violation of human rights, the absence of accountability of the
security apparatus, rise of factionalized elites, and intervention of other states or
external political actors). In this index, the higher values indicate higher degrees of
state weakness, and lower values represent greater state capacity.22
The State Fragility Index, maintained by the Center for Systemic Peace and the
Center for Global Policy at Maryland University and sponsored by the One Earth
Future Foundation, covers 162 countries (with populations greater than 500,000)
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 427

TABLE 1
RANKING STATE FAILURE: 40 LOWEST STATES, IN ORDER OF WEAKNESS

Failed States Global Peace Human Index of State State Fragility

Rank Index Index Development Index Weakness Index

1 Somalia Iraq Sierra Leone Somalia Somalia

2 Sudan Somalia Burkina Faso Afghanistan Sudan
3 Zimbabwe Sudan Guinea-Bissau DR Congo Afghanistan
4 Chad Afghanistan Niger Iraq Myanmar
5 Iraq Israel Mali Burundi Chad
6 DR Congo Chad Mozambique Sudan DR Congo
7 Afghanistan CAR CAR CAR Iraq
8 Cote d’Ivoire North Korea Chad Zimbabwe Rwanda
9 Pakistan Lebanon Ethiopia Liberia Burundi
10 CAR Russia DR Congo Cote D’Ivoire Liberia
11 Guinea Colombia Burundi Angola Nigeria
12 Bangladesh Nigeria Cote d’Ivoire Haiti Sierra Leone
13 Burma DR Congo Zambia Sierra Leone CAR
14 Haiti Pakistan Malawi Eritrea Ethiopia
15 North Korea Myanmar Benin North Korea Guinea
16 Ethiopia Sri Lanka Angola Chad Angola
17 Uganda Zimbabwe Rwanda Burma Guinea-Bissau
18 Lebanon Venezuela Guinea Guinea-Bissau Zambia
19 Nigeria Cote d’Ivoire Tanzania Ethiopia Burkina Faso
20 Sri Lanka Ethiopia Nigeria Congo, Rep. Cameroon
21 Yemen Mauritania Eritrea Niger Congo, Rep.
22 Niger Kenya Senegal Nepal Eritrea
23 Nepal Thailand Gambia Guinea Ivory Coast
24 Burundi Congo, Rep. Uganda Rwanda Niger
25 Timor-Leste South Africa Yemen Equatorial G. Uganda
26 Kenya Turkey Togo Togo Zimbabwe
27 Congo, Rep. Uganda Zimbabwe Uganda Algeria
28 Uzbekistan Philippines Timor-Leste Nigeria East Timor
29 Malawi Algeria Djibouti Cameroon Nepal
30 Solomon Isl.. Uzbekistan Kenya Yemen Pakistan
31 Sierra Leone Angola Sudan Comoros Yemen
32 Guinea Bissau Haiti Haiti Zambia Djibouti
33 Cameroon Saudi Arabia PNG Pakistan Iran
34 Liberia India Cameroon Cambodia Kenya
35 Syria Yemen Madagascar Turkmenistan Malawi
36 Burkina Faso Iran Nepal Uzbekistan Mauritania
37 Colombia Honduras Swaziland Mauritania Mozambique
38 Tajikistan Guatemala Bangladesh Djibouti Uzbekistan
39 Kyrgyzstan Turkmenistan Congo Mozambique Azerbaijan
40 Egypt Azerbaijan Lesotho PNG Benin

Sources: See text.

that constitute the global system in 2008. The State Fragility Index and Matrix rates
each country according to its level of fragility in both effectiveness and legitimacy
across four dimensions: security, governance, economic development, and social
development.23 The Global Peace Index is sponsored by the Vision of Humanity.24
It measures levels of ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety
and security, and levels of militarization, and formulates 24 indicators based upon
these three areas. Although this index focuses primarily on trends of armed conflict
428 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

and violence it is relevant to state weakness and failure as the indictors measured for
the assessment of ‘peace’ in this context are also indicative of state capacity. In
addition, armed conflict is itself often indicative – and a source – of state weak-
ness/failure. The Human Development Index (HDI) of the UN Development Pro-
gramme can also be taken as an indication of state capacity and hence state
weakness and failure. It measures the average achievements in a country in basic
dimensions of human development relating to health, life expectancy, education,
and standard of living. It is therefore an authoritative illustration of public service
delivery. It is calculated for 177 countries and territories for which data are available.
The highest possible HDI ranking is one. Values less than one indicate progressively
lower standards of human development. The HDI is considered relevant, as an indi-
cation of state capacity and incapacity, because public service delivery is a key indi-
cator of state effectiveness and capacity (and as a corollary, poor service delivery
and low human development are indictors of weak state capacity). The Worldwide
Governance Indicators research project, sponsored by the World Bank, is also relevant
to measurements of state capacity and weakness/failure. The indicators measure six
dimensions of governance: voice and accountability, political stability and absence
of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law, and
control of corruption. Of particular relevance to evaluations of state weakness and
failure, the Government Effectiveness Indicators measure perceptions of the quality
of public services, the quality of the civil service and the degree of its independence
from political pressures, the quality of policy formulation and implementation, and
the credibility of the government’s commitment to such policies.25
The Index of State Weakness in the Developing World (2008) of the Brookings
Institution ranks and assesses 141 developing nations according to their relative per-
formance in four spheres: economic, political, security and social welfare.26 It is
possible to identify some patterns amongst the hundred worst cases of state weakness
and failure according to these indices for the years 2007– 08. Clearly, they do not use
a common definition of failed states or a common methodology to analyse the
concept. The UNDP Human Development Index is primarily an indication of
human welfare and public service delivery rather than explicitly failed states, and
the World Bank rankings focus on governance. Some – such as the Human Develop-
ment Index – also exclude states where reliable data are impossible to obtain, such as
Iraq and Somalia. This is clearly a major limitation, because weak or failed states are
by definition those on which reliable data are difficult or impossible to establish.
There are, therefore, limitations in terms of comparing these indices. Nevertheless,
the indices all directly or indirectly relate to the definition of weak and failed states
used in this paper – focusing upon public service delivery and state capacity – and
therefore provide a useful indication of current thinking on the topic.
A simple comparison of the rankings indicates some discrepancies. The Brook-
ings ranking, for examples, places Burundi as the fifth weakest state, whilst the
country appears 24th on the Failed States Index and does not appear on the Global
Peace Index. Other countries – such as Comoros, Djibouti, Mozambique, and
Zambia – appear at very different ranks on these listings, despite the rankings
being based on similar indicators. Inexplicably, other countries which feature
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 429

relatively high on the indexes of some rankings are absent from others. What explains
these discrepancies? Does this result from the different methodologies used in the
indexes, different sources of data, or perhaps from the different agendas of those
who produce the rankings?
However, a comparison does indicate some consensus on those countries con-
sidered to be the weakest and closest to a situation of state failure. Somalia, for
example, appears as the weakest – and thus the epitome of a failed state – on the
Brookings, Failed States Index, World Bank Index, and the State Fragility Index,
and second only to Iraq on the Global Peace Index. Afghanistan, Central African
Republic, D.R. Congo, Iraq, Somalia and Sudan appear amongst the weakest 15 in
all five rankings.
Do a significant number of these countries fail to uphold a Westphalian model of
international relations due to their incapacity, and thus undermine the concept of this
international order? If we accept that these 40 countries are severely weak – or in risk
of failure – is that a significant enough proportion out of an international system of
some 200 states to suggest a fundamental flaw in the Westphalian ontology? Do all
severely weak states – or a significant proportion – create major security threats?
Are these new security threats, or simply the same regional security effects that
have always existed?

The Security Impact of Weak and Failed States

A range of pathologies have been associated with the condition of weak and failed
states, and some of these are claimed to have an international or even global impact.
These situations often involve violent conflict, either as a cause or a consequence of
state failure or weakness, which involves a number of negative transnational effects.
These include forced migration flows which can lead to the spread of insurgents, threa-
tening regional stability on an ongoing basis and sometimes causing conflicts in neigh-
bouring states.27 There is ample evidence of this. Forcibly displaced Rwandans in
Uganda formed the basis of the Rwandan Patriotic Front which fought an ongoing
armed struggle with the government of Rwanda in the 1980s and 1990s. In turn, follow-
ing the 1994 genocide, militarized displaced groups in the D.R. Congo formed a major
force in that country, mounting attacks across the border in Rwanda. Such was the scale
of these attacks that the army of Rwanda has repeatedly invaded the D.R. Congo, and
the whole region has become embroiled in an ongoing armed conflict of enormous
magnitude. It is impossible to understand the ongoing conflict in the African Great
Lakes region, involving multiple countries and millions of deaths, without reference
to militarized groups of forcibly displaced people, in turn a characteristic of the conflict
and weak nature of states in the region. The weak – or failed – nature of the state in
Afghanistan can also be clearly linked to destabilizing migration. In the 1980s and
1990s the flow of refugees into Pakistan fuelled a militarized, radical uprising – the
Taliban – that was eventually to seize control of the state, with far-reaching and
demonstrable security implications.
Weak and failing states are vulnerable to all forms of smuggling, including traf-
ficking in small arms and light weapons through porous borders, and this is also a
430 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

demonstrable source of regional insecurity.28 Weapons flowed across borders in the

Balkans in the 1990s, between Afghanistan and Pakistan for years, and in many
African cases. There is ample evidence that weak borders have facilitated the flow
of weapons which have sustained insurgencies and conflicts throughout the world.
There has also been some suggestion that weak and failing states – either as a
point of transit or origin – may be a site for the transfer of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons materials.29 With the break-up of the Soviet Union there
were concerns that such materials located in precarious successor states might be vul-
nerable to illegal exploitation on the black market and there is indeed some evidence
that some of this leaked. In addition, controversial – and ultimately spurious – intel-
ligence identified Niger as a source of uranium to Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion,
prompting discussion of a link between weak/failed states and WMD proliferation
as a general phenomenon. This broader claim has not been substantiated and
remains quite hypothetical, and indeed questionable.
There is also a more intuitively reliable claim that such states also provide an
environment in which – due to the absence of orderly institutions and accountable
governance – recalcitrant or aggressive governments can come to power, abuse
the privileges of sovereign statehood and pose a threat to regional security. Charles
Taylor rose to the position of President of Liberia in the context of that country’s
protracted conflict and collapse. His dysfunctional regime fuelled conflict in Liberia
and also in neighbouring countries, especially Sierra Leone.
These states are also more likely to host war economies: the illegal commercial
networks and activities which thrive in environments where there is no effective
rule of law.30 As well as fuelling conflicts within these societies and across the
region, the consequences can be found further afield. Paul Collier, for example,
claims that ‘Ninety five percent of global production of hard drugs is from conflict
countries’.31 In particular, an overwhelming proportion of cocaine and heroin orig-
inates from Colombia and Afghanistan and their production is arguably facilitated
by the absence of government control in vast regions of those countries. The
impact of the narcotics trade upon Western countries is clearly taken very seriously
as a security threat and this is reflected in the policies and resources directed to this
issue. The challenge of piracy also highlights how illegal entrepreneurs can exploit
an absence of law enforcement in order to prey on international business, with
far-reaching ramifications. This phenomenon is again epitomized by the case of
Somalia, where lawlessness has enabled pirates to attack ships deep into the Indian
Ocean, resulting in significant increases in shipping costs.
Weak and failed states may have an adverse impact upon the natural environment,
with transnational effects, because such countries are unlikely to have effective regu-
lations to govern environmental degradation. The conflict in Sudan serves as an
example, which has been described as the first climate change conflict. The govern-
ment of the country has been unable or unwilling to address the competition over
resources in Darfur that has been exacerbated by the spread of the desert and the
decline in habitable and agricultural land. That conflict has drawn in neighbouring
countries and posed huge humanitarian problems that cannot be ignored by the
international community.
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 431

Weak and failed states may be a source of heightened health problems as

such states are less able to control epidemics due to the incapacity of their health
facilities, and the porous nature of their borders means that contagious health
problems can spread uncontrolled to neighbouring regions or further afield. This
can be exacerbated by the forced displacement of communities, which can facilitate
transborder contamination and which are inherently vulnerable to health problems. In
2008 a cholera epidemic devastated parts of Zimbabwe, indicating the weak capacity
of health service delivery in that country. The government proved to be incapable of
addressing the humanitarian catastrophe and the case epitomized the weak statehood
concept. In addition, the epidemic spread into neighbouring countries, imposing
a significant burden upon their health services and local populations. It would
also come as no surprise that weak or fragile states are less able to prevent,
manage and contain the spread of the HIV virus.32 From a more global – though
less verifiable – perspective it has been claimed that ‘AIDs probably spread
through an African civil war’.33
Finally, many studies – especially since 9/11 – have argued that weak or failed
states may provide an environment conducive to the emergence or operation of
terrorist organizations which may target local or international interests. Recent
experience in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan and Somalia is illustrative of this
claim. According to this argument, ‘Terrorists are strongest where states are
weakest’,34 and weak or failed states provide a ‘breeding ground’ or ‘sanctuary’ for
terrorism.35 The supposed relationship between weak or failed states and terrorism
rests upon a number of assumptions: Terrorist groups will make a decision about oper-
ating in an environment of weak or failed states; in a vacuum of public authority – with
no functioning or effective institutions of police enforcement or justice – terrorist
groups can actively recruit, train and plan attacks which target either local or foreign
interests; and terrorist groups can operate in such states – free from detection, interfer-
ence, or interdiction – more effectively than in functioning states.
A number of corollary assumptions are implied in the relationship between weak
or failed states and terrorism. It implies that significant terrorist groups would have
difficulty operating within fully functioning states because the existence of effective
institutions would hamper or undermine their activities. Moreover, this implies that
if institutions in vulnerable states are strengthened, it would significantly reduce
the threat of terrorism both locally and internationally. The argument suggests that
international terrorism thrives in weak or failed states, and so these situations must
be addressed in order to deny a haven to terrorist groups which will otherwise pose
critical threats. As expressed by Stephen van Evera, ‘Al-Qaeda and other terror
groups grow and thrive in failed states, using them as havens in which they can
establish secure bases to mass-produce trained, motivated killers’.36 Others have
taken a more cautious approach to the relationship between failed states and
terrorism, arguing that the relationship is not simple or automatically causal, and
that it is not necessarily the weakest states that form a haven for terrorist organiz-
ations.37 Indeed, contrary to popular perception, it is not necessarily the condition
of weak or failed statehood that explains the presence of terrorist organizations in
most or many cases.
432 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

The Significance of Failed States

The empirical debate on failed states and their significance – whether their security
implications constitute a post-Westphalian reality – is inconclusive, and it certainly
cannot be resolved here. The debate is characterized by different definitions and indi-
cators of failed states, and the security impacts vary and are anecdotal. A range of
different empirical rankings feature the same approximately 40 states as weak, in
varying degrees, and displaying some or all of the pathologies associated with this
condition. They are also generally dependent upon international aid and assistance.
A far smaller number of states approach the condition of ‘failed’. Nevertheless,
this number of weak and potentially failed states is significant enough in itself to rep-
resent a challenge to the Westphalian ontology – or rather, to indicate that the West-
phalian model is not and perhaps never was representative of the reality of security
and insecurity for much of the world. They defy the idea of an international
system of two hundred or so autonomous, viable states in control of their territory
and borders, and they defy the idea of the entirety of the world being divided
amongst and covered by sovereign authorities. Mainstream international relations
theories and approaches to international security premised upon these conventional
assumptions are therefore clearly missing a significant amount of the reality of the
world. Weak or failed states may not necessarily represent a viable category in them-
selves, given their enormous diversity and the analytical imprecision of the concept.
Yet the fact that a significant number of states do not live up to the Westphalian
model – even if there is not a satisfactory definition of this excluded other – is
surely a challenge to the Westphalian construction. Irrespective of whether this is
new, the construction of the legalist Westphalian model is fundamentally under
challenge.
In terms of the experience of insecurity and armed violence in the late 20th and
early 21st century, again there appears to be a post-Westphalian reality. The absolute
numbers of civil wars and situations of generalized violence in collapsing states is,
and has generally been, much higher than conventional inter-state wars. The
number of people killed or forcibly displaced by civil wars since the end of the
Second World War has dwarfed those victimized in inter-state wars. Of course,
this does not in itself undermine the Westphalian model of international security,
or mainstream IR approaches that are preoccupied with inter-state security and inse-
curity. As the neorealists would argue, they are not aiming to describe everything
about the international system, just the most important aspects.38 Yet surely the
reality of armed conflict – predominantly inside (failing) states rather than between
states – is a challenge to the Westphalian model, even if die-hard neorealists can
skirt around this.
However, it is also possible to argue that failed states do not challenge the
Westphalian system because this system has always been a political construction
with limited reach, and the reach of the Westphalian system is possibly greater
today than it has ever been. In addition, the security threats of weak and failed
states are inconclusive. Certainly, these transborder security implications are a
threat, but it is questionable whether they can be compared to the existential threat
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 433

found in inter-state war. And whilst these transborder threats are a challenge, they are
principally a threat to neighbours or regions, rather than a broader threat to
international order.
The most dramatic demonstrations of the relationship between weak/failed states
and international (in)security are probably provided by experiences of terrorism and
forced migration. ‘Terrorist’ organizations operate in weak states or regions of states
that are weakly governed; the experience of India, Somalia, Afghanistan and Pakistan
is irrefutable in this regard, and the security implications of this have clearly been
international and even global. However, despite the enormity of 9/11, it is doubtful
that the al-Qaeda attacks represented a fundamental paradigm shift in the dynamics of
international security. 9/11 indicated that a failing state harboured a terrorist organ-
ization that had devastating intent. Even considering the threat of al-Qaeda and the
use it makes of poorly governed territories to organize its attacks, the actual security
threat of such states is a matter of debate in historical perspective. There is no indi-
cation that all weak or failed states pose a similar threat, or that 9/11 represented a
threat to the United States comparable, for example, to the Soviet Union during
the Cold War. Moreover, it is not necessarily the weakest states in which the most
significant terrorist groups are generally found.39 The threats of weak and failed
states are not yet existential, and cannot be compared in magnitude to the dangers
of inter-state conflict. These threats are not new, as a regional phenomenon, and
the global impact of failed states is not universally accepted or proven.
Setting the inconclusive empirical debate aside, it may be more fruitful to
consider how weak and failed states and the threats they represent are perceived
and constructed, the meanings attached to them in policy and academic discourse,
and the responses that are felt to be justified by the emergence of this challenge. In
this way, the meanings attached to weak and failed states are significant enough to
represent a shift to a post-Westphalian world, insofar as ontological notions of
world order are subjective. In an epistemic and political sense – in terms of how
international order and threats are conceived of and represented in discourse – the
Westphalian model is significantly challenged. This model is in many ways a con-
struction; as such, the phenomenon of weak and failed states undermines the consti-
tutive basis of this construction and suggests a post-Westphalian international order.
Moreover, these perceptions – even if they are essentially political constructions –
can have enormous material effects in terms of the decisions taken by powerful
actors, the allocation of resources, and the interpretation of and response to threats.
A number of factors have contributed to these changing perceptions which have
elevated the importance of failed states. Firstly, the conceptual and empirical weak-
nesses of the Westphalian model – especially in the post-1945 era – are today more
understood. Secondly, the relative rarity of inter-state war has heightened the
apparent threat of weak and failed states. Neighbouring countries – in historical per-
spective the ‘greatest’ threat – are now less likely to invade each other, and so by
default other threats seem more hazardous. In historical perspective, especially for
the developed world, the decline of inter-state threats has heightened awareness of
non-traditional threats. In the near absence of inter-state conquest in the developed
world, the primary threats have emanated from weak and failed states, and the
434 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

perception of where threats come from clearly reflects a post-Westphalian

experience. In fact, in the relative absence of a conventional inter-state threat, most
Western states are indeed probably more threatened by the implications of weak or
failed states. The decline of old fashioned inter-state threats, and the rise of threats
associated with weak and failed states, may well both be exaggerated, but neverthe-
less this is how reality is constructed. Given the importance of perception, failed
and extremely weak states do represent a challenge to the Westphalian model of
international politics.
Therefore, the idea of failed states – and the popularity of focusing on this – is a
reflection of Western concerns over new security threats since 9/11, and thus a
political construction. In this sense, weak states in poor regions of the world have
been securitized to the extent that they are often presented as the primary threat to
Western, industrialized states. This is a quintessential example of securitization:
the process by which issues are accorded security status or seen as a threat through
political labelling, rather than as a result of their real or objective significance. The
results of this can have enormous political impact: securitization mobilizes excep-
tional resources and political powers which are not necessarily proportionate to the
security challenges, and sometimes manipulated for political purposes.40 An
approach to security studies which focuses upon securitization might suggest that
many of the threats associated with weak or failed states are exaggerated and the
attention that these situations attract is not in proportion to the threat they represent.
This leads to a further explanation of the political significance of failed states:
the interests of certain actors – including their access to resources and political influ-
ence – are served by the threat of failed states and so this threat is keenly prioritized
and reiterated.
The shift in perception appears to be reflected in some policy arrangements in
Western circles. During the Cold War failed states and civil war were generally
seen in Western power centres as an ‘external’ phenomenon in peripheral, faraway
places. There was an interest in influencing outcomes and intervention in proxy con-
flicts followed from this, but the actual condition of state failure or conflict was gen-
erally not seen as a direct security threat (indeed, it was often seen as an opportunity).
In contrast, in the post-Cold War era, and certainly after 9/11, situations of civil war
and state failure are seen – or constructed – as a key threat. As a corollary, according
to Rotberg, addressing these situations has ‘become one of the critical all-consuming
strategic and moral imperatives of our terrorized time’.41
Policy discourse – and to some extent policy – echoes this sentiment. The United
States’ National Defense Strategy of 2008 states that:
The inability of many states to police themselves effectively or to work with
their neighbors to ensure regional security represents a challenge to the inter-
national system. Armed sub-national groups, including but not limited to
those inspired by violent extremism, threaten the stability and legitimacy of
key states. If left unchecked, such instability can spread and threaten regions
of interest to the United States, our allies, and friends. Insurgent groups and
other non-state actors frequently exploit local geographical, political, or
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 435

social conditions to establish safe havens from which they can operate with
impunity. Ungoverned, undergoverned, misgoverned, and contested areas
offer fertile ground for such groups to exploit the gaps in governance capacity
of local regimes to undermine local stability and regional security.42
The Millennium Challenge Account, established by the United States with a commit-
ment of 4 billion dollars in 2002, reflects the idea of promoting development as a
means to promote stability. In February 2007, the US Department of Defense
announced the creation of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), ‘acknowledging the
emerging strategic importance of Africa, and recognizing that peace and stability
on the continent impacts not only Africans, but the interests of the United States
and international community as well’.43 The establishment of AFRICOM represents
a new American strategic focus upon developing countries, which in turn reflects
changing perceptions of the nature of international threats to security. The US
State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization
was established in 2004 and its mission statement could not provide a clearer state-
ment of the development – security – peace nexus:
Failing and post-conflict states pose one of the greatest national and inter-
national security challenges of our day, threatening vulnerable populations,
their neighbors, our allies, and ourselves. Struggling states can provide breed-
ing grounds for terrorism, crime, trafficking, and humanitarian catastrophes,
and can destabilize an entire region. Experience shows that managing conflict,
particularly internal conflict, is not a passing phenomenon. It has become a
mainstream part of our foreign policy.44
The first UK National Security Strategy of 2008 reflects similar thinking, arguing that
a key driver of global insecurity in the contemporary world is poverty, inequality, and
poor governance:
In the past, most violent conflicts and significant threats to global security came
from strong states. Currently, most of the major threats and risks emanate from
failed or fragile states . . . Failed and fragile states increase the risk of instability
and conflict, and at the same time have a reduced capacity to deal with it, as we
see in parts of Africa. They have the potential to destabilise the surrounding
region. Many fragile states lack the capacity and, in some cases, the will
adequately to address terrorism and organised crime, in some instances
knowingly tolerating or directly sponsoring such activity.45
The establishment of the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in
1997 is a further example of this thinking. Before DFID, the British Overseas
Development Administration ran development assistance under the supervision of
the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). With the growing realization that
underdevelopment, weak states and conflict affect British interests – including its
security – the political role of DFID has soared, often eclipsing the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office itself. Funding for DFID has naturally increased in the area
of governance and stabilization; its outlook, characterized in the 2006 White Paper,
436 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

Making Governance Work for the Poor, clearly sees a convergence between security,
peace-building and development.46 The underlying assumption to these policy
developments is, according to DFID: ‘Security and development are linked . . .
Poverty, underdevelopment and fragile states create fertile conditions for conflict
and the emergence of new security threats, including international crime and
terrorism’.47
Regional and international organizations have also embraced this outlook. In
2005, the High Level Meeting of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development presented Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile
States, with a ‘focus on state-building as the central objective’.48 The establishment
of the UN Peace-Building Commission and the Stabilization and Association process
of the European Union also reflect this evolving security thinking, as do central policy
platforms of the World Bank and other international development organizations.
Approaches to peace-building and stabilization have also evolved with this, now
incorporating many aspects of state-building. International transitional adminis-
trations – such as existed in Cambodia, Bosnia, East Timor, Eastern Slavonia, and
Kosovo – represent a most substantive and intrusive type of intervention aimed at
resolving conflict, promoting stability, and facilitating peace-building. International
officials have been involved in a wide range of activities in these societies, providing
services and taking responsibility for policy traditionally reserved for the sovereign
state and government. The extent of the activities being conducted by international
actors in such situations has meant that international actors, such as the UN or the
EU, have taken control of certain sovereign roles. De facto suspension of sovereignty
(partially as ‘shared sovereignty’ or as neo-trusteeships) is arguably already occurring
in practice. This is clearly taking peace-building into the post-Westphalian world,
suggesting that not all states are viable, that sovereignty is conditional upon states
meeting certain responsibilities and standards of governance, and that conditions
inside states have an impact upon international peace and security.
The nature of post-conflict peace-building, reflecting as it does a liberal assump-
tion of modern state institutions, likewise suggests a Western image of what a state
should look like, when a state has failed, and what should be done to repair a dysfunc-
tional state. Some analysts argue that this is highly intrusive, or a pretext for interven-
tion.49 Until the 1990s, situations of weak and failed states were seen as humanitarian
challenges, to be addressed as charity as long as this did not conflict with the demands
of national interest. However, with the apparent realization that these situations
represent a threat, this has transformed into an argument for questioning or
denying the sovereignty of such states in order to neutralize the ‘threat’. Krasner
thus argues that the rules of conventional sovereignty ‘no longer work, and their
inadequacies have had deleterious consequences for the strong as well as the weak.
The policy tools that powerful and well-governed states have available to fix badly
governed or collapsed states . . . are inadequate.’50 Keohane comes to some similar
conclusions: ‘classical notions of sovereignty provide a poor basis for policy with
respect to post-intervention political decisions in troubled societies’.51 Sovereignty
should therefore be ‘unbundled’ into its different components, and those components
which are not viable should be reconsidered.
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 437

Conclusion
Failed states clearly display a range of pathologies which have a significant negative
impact upon the welfare of their citizens and upon international – possibly even
global – peace and security. However, the securitization of failed states in political
and academic discourse, and the attention given to these situations in policy
circles, also reflects a subjective (Western) construction of international security
threats. Some failed state situations – such as Somalia and Afghanistan – are prior-
itized, whilst others – such as the Central African Republic and Guinea Bissau – are
essentially ignored. Some such situations have demonstrable security impacts, whilst
in many other cases weak and failing states have little security impact beyond that to
their own citizens. Moreover, the concept of failed states is not in itself a viable
empirical category for most types of analysis. Nevertheless, as a political construc-
tion, within the context of broader perceptions about the nature of security and
threats, it has implications for international politics and security. In terms of how
international order and threats to security are perceived and constructed – which is
not necessarily the same as reality – the idea of failed states represents a fundamental
challenge to conventional thinking. This is reinforced by the apparent decline in
inter-state conflict and it is emblematic of a transition to a post-Westphalian world.
In this way the idea of weak or failed states, as a challenge to the idealized
Westphalian system of Weberian states, in turn undermines the constitutive order of
the international system. Krasner is correct that the Westphalian system never
existed as an ideal type in reality.52 But as a political construction, it did – or
does – exist. As represented in discourse and policy assumptions, then, and in terms
of how threats and challenges are perceived, the notion of failed states – and the
convergence of security and development – is a shift to a post-Westphalian era.
There are a number of implications for security policy and analysis. Firstly, this
discussion demonstrates that there is a distinction between the concept of failed states
as represented in policy and academic discourse, and the ‘reality’ of failed states
which is hotly contested. Therefore, subjective interpretations and constructions of
threats and challenges can and do have enormous material consequences in terms
of funding, diplomatic attention, and sometimes even military action. The use of
the failed state label – when it is applied, why, and with what effect – is not
always the result of objective truth or reality, but of a subjective interpretation of
events which has prioritized failed states but neglected – for example – environ-
mental challenges or preventable disease. But as a demonstration of the importance
of political constructions, the empirical reality of failed states is in many ways actu-
ally less important than the perception of powerful actors towards the concept and the
security threats inherent in them. The broader point here is that the formulation of
security policy is a political process; not something which results from detached,
impartial analysis (which is not to say that such analysis is necessarily incorrect).
The popularity of the failed state concept and its impact upon policy circles reflects
the interests and influence of certain types of political agendas and analysts. It is the
comparative magnitude of such threats – in the context of the low expectation of
inter-state conflict – that puts them high up the political agenda, rather than their
438 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

objective inherent hazard. As long as governments and security establishments are

sensitive to the alleged threats of failed states and are willing to fund research into
this area, scholars and analysts will emphasize – and indeed play up – the dangers
of failed states. Moreover, this process has tended to reinforce a securitization
approach to certain problems associated with underdevelopment and weak states in
the developing world.
Secondly, with the realization that weak or conflicted states in the developing
world can threaten security, powerful states and international organizations have
invested increasing amounts of funds and attention to containing conflict and stabiliz-
ing volatile societies. This has brought positive and negative consequences. This has
increased volumes of humanitarian assistance, pushed hitherto forgotten – or ignored –
crises onto the international policy radar, and prioritized the resolution of conflict.
Simply put, viewing conflict, poor governance and underdevelopment in the developing
world as a threat to Western interests has brought much-needed resources, aid and
capacity-building to these countries. Figures related to development assistance and
peace operations reflect this. For example, total OECD-recognized official development
assistance (ODA) flows, made through its Development Assistance Committee, as an
absolute figure and as a percentage of gross national income (GNI), both increased
from 2003 to 2007. Turning to the British experience as a typical example, in 2007/
08 the total DFID aid programme was £5.2 bn, an increase of 40 per cent since 2003/
04. DFID’s bilateral aid programme was over £2.9 bn in 2007/08, an increase of 47
per cent from five years before in 2003/04.53
Aside from overall ODA figures, it is important to note that the proportion of
assistance directed towards governance assistance and conflict prevention activities
has increased significantly. In terms of UN peacekeeping, in the 45 years between
the establishment of the UN and 1990, 18 operations were established. Between
1990 and 2008, 44 peacekeeping and peace-building operations were established,
largely for the most grievous problems of state weakness and failure described
here. The results of this appear to suggest that increased international efforts are
helping to reduce the absolute numbers of civil wars, which is surely an unambiguous
victory from both the humanitarian and security perspectives.
Less positively, the securitization of weak and failed states reinforces a tendency
to externalize problems in the developing – ‘other’ – world, and even to demonize
the ‘other’ as a pretext for control and intervention. This results in a lack of respect,
sensitivity and understanding of problems elsewhere, and a failure to appreciate that
these problems are in some ways a consequence of pathologies inherent in the inter-
national system. According to this critical view, this translates into international
peace-building and state-building policies which are not legitimate or effective,
and it ignores the underlying (systemic) sources of conflict in favour of stability
and containment.54 Bosnia serves as an example: international peace-building
there, whilst bringing welcome stability, has not addressed – and has even reinforced –
the ethnic polarization and sectarianism which exists. Politics largely mirrors the
nationalist agendas of militant parties and social and economic gaps are sources of
dissatisfaction. There is little consensus amongst the different communities regarding
the causes of the civil war in Bosnia – and thus no reconciliation – and it is
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 439

questionable whether self-sustaining national institutions would be durable in the

absence of external support.
In addition, the securitization of underdevelopment and instability in the develop-
ing world – in the form of failed states – may also result in selectivity in how these
challenges are addressed: assistance will be concentrated in areas of strategic interest,
to the detriment of other needy but less important regions. Moreover, this type of
thinking implies a politicization of assistance, prioritizing the needs of friendly
countries, again to the neglect of humanitarian needs elsewhere. This is demonstrated
by a comparison between the peace-building resources invested in the Balkans –
especially Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eastern Slavonia and Kosovo – with those
invested in many African cases. The United Kingdom’s attention to and investment
in building institutions Sierra Leone is a further illustration of this, alongside other
volatile and weak states in the region which are essentially ignored. This prioritiza-
tion is a consequence of state-building being directed at the interests of powerful
international actors rather than people in the target countries.
Thirdly, spurious interpretations of weak and failed states can lead to dubious
policy prescriptions and responses which are not proportionate to the challenge.
The failed state concept has securitized phenomena associated with this paradigm
– such as refugees – which may be better addressed as a human rights issue rather
than as a security challenge. Seeing refugee flows as a potential security challenge
can result in the challenge being exaggerated and states becoming defensive,
leading to exclusionary approaches which can contribute to policies of warehousing
and protracted refugee situations, and responses which are not proportionate to the
challenge. Moreover, the impact of the failed states idea brings the subjective
nature of the security threats into focus: until recently, for example, climate
change was not taken seriously as a security challenge, despite the much greater
threat is represents.
Fourthly, the effect of labelling states as failed illustrates another constructivist
process in international politics. Aside from the real meaning of state failure, and
despite its contested and ambiguous nature, the label can have very significant
impacts. Such states, for example, will be seen by foreign policy elites as (potential)
security – rather than development or human rights – challenges. And there is the
real danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy, since weak and failed states may have
difficulty attracting international investment and credit.
Finally, there is still no objective definition or measurement of weak and
failed states, despite some serious attempts to do so.55 This suggests that policy
aiming to support weak and failing states does not rest upon a reliable assessment
of the dangers inherent in such states, or which states to assist. The concept is
also vulnerable to political manipulation, which can undermine its analytical
usefulness.
Should we give up on the concept of failed states? Despite the analytical and
normative problems discussed herein, the attention to failed states reflects – but
does not address – a key problem in international politics. Whatever the empirical
‘reality’ of failed states, this debate problematizes the Westphalian model of
international politics which privileges an unrealistic universal model of international
440 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

politics comprised of equally sovereign, viable states, and an outdated conception

of insecurity that does not reflect the realities of the 21st century. The concept of
failed states, however problematic, should therefore not be abandoned. The fact
that the failure concept has won so much interest indicates a real need to think
more carefully and more critically about the constitutive nature of international
politics. Analysts of security policy need to reconsider and question some of the
underlying assumptions of their craft – in terms of actors and ontologies of
international politics, and the nature of security and insecurity – and the failed
states debate leads us to do this. However, a more critical approach to defining and
measuring failed states is necessary. Mainstream approaches need to become more
nuanced and differentiated in their consideration of failed states, in order to
develop more reliable and less politically biased empirical explorations of the
phenomenon. In turn, theoretically critical approaches – which tend to reject the
concept out of hand as a dubious hegemonic tool – should consider engaging
the concept more to try to go beyond the success/failure binary that is implied in
the failed state concept. Together, the different approaches might help to deepen
understanding of the nature of contemporary international politics and perhaps
help to formulate policy to address the challenges of weak and failed states.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and the editors of Contemporary Security
Policy for their valuable comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

NOTES

1. Trevor Thrall and Jane Kellet Cramer (eds), American Foreign Policy and the Politics of Fear: Threat
Inflation since 9/11 (London: Routledge, 2009).
2. Francis Fukuyama, State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2004), p. 92.
3. Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Rethinking the Sovereign State Model’, Review of International Studies, Vol. 27,
No. 5 (December 2001), pp. 17–42.
4. Robert I. Rotberg, ‘Failed States in a World of Terror’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 81, No. 4 (July/August
2002), pp. 127– 40; Susan E. Rice, ‘The New National Security Strategy: Focus on Failed States’,
Brookings Policy Brief No. 116 (February 2003); John J. Hamre and Gordon R. Sullivan, ‘Toward
Postconflict Reconstruction’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No. 4 (Autumn 2002), pp. 85–96;
Chester A. Crocker, ‘Engaging Failing States’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 5 (September/October,
2003), pp. 32–44.
5. Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
6. Ibid., p. 5.
7. Ibid., p. 10.
8. Ibid., p. 24.
9. Raimo Vayrynen, ‘Complex Humanitarian Emergencies: Concepts and Issues’, in E. Wayne Nafziger,
Frances Stewart and Raimo Vayrynen (eds), War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of
Humanitarian Emergencies, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 43.
10. Kalevi J. Holsti, ‘Political Causes of Humanitarian Emergencies’, in E. Wayne Nafziger et al., War,
Hunger, and Displacement (note 9), p. 239. See also Donald M. Snow, Uncivil Wars: International
Security and the New Internal Conflicts (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1996); Herfried Munkler,
The New Wars (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004); Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars (Cambridge:
Polity Press, 2006).
FAILED STATES AND INTERNATIONAL ORDER 441

11. Snow, Uncivil Wars (note 10), p. 1.

12. Kaldor, New and Old Wars (note 10), p. 73.
13. Ibid., p. 97.
14. Vayrynen, ‘Complex Humanitarian Emergencies’ (note 9), p. 44.
15. Gerald B. Helman and Steven R. Ratner, ‘Saving Failed States’, Foreign Policy, No. 89 (Winter 1992/
93), pp. 3 –20, at p. 3.
16. Francis Fukuyama, State-Building. Governance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, 2004), particularly Chapter 3; Robert I. Rotberg, ‘Failed States in a World
of Terror’ (note 4); Chester A. Crocker, ‘Engaging Failing States’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 5
(September/October 2003), pp. 32–44; ‘Failed States: Picking Up the Pieces’, journal symposium,
various authors, Harvard International Review, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter 2008); Stephen D. Krasner
and Carlos Pascual, ‘Addressing State Failure’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 4 (July– August
2005), pp. 153–63; Marla C. Haims, David C. Gompert, Gregory F. Treverton and Brooke Stearns
Lawson, Breaking the Failed-State Cycle (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008); Derick
W. Brinkerhoff, ‘Rebuilding Governance in Failed States and Post-Conflict Societies’, Public Admin-
istration and Development, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2005), pp. 3– 14; Chuck Hagel, ‘A Republican Foreign
Policy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 4 (July– August 2004), pp. 64–76; Princeton N. Lyman and
J. Stephen Morrison, ‘The Terrorist Threat in Africa’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 83, No. 1 (January–
February 2004), pp. 75–9; Stuart Eizenstat, John Edward Porter and Jeremy Weinstein, ‘Rebuilding
Weak States’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 84, No. 1 (January– February 2005), pp. 134 –6; Rosa Ehrenreich
Brooks, ‘Failed States, or the State as Failure?’, The University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 72, No. 4
(Fall 2005), pp. 1159– 96; Anonymous, ‘The Failed State Index 2007’, Foreign Policy, No. 161 (2007),
pp. 54– 63; Rachel Stohl and Michael Stohl, ‘Failing the Failed: The Bush Administration and Failed
States’, Harvard International Review, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter 2008), pp. 56– 65; Daniel Thurer, ‘An
Internal Challenge: Partnerships in Fixing Failed States’, Harvard International Review, Vol. 29, No. 4
(Winter 2008), pp. 42–5.
17. Hagel, ‘A Republican Foreign Policy’ (note 16), p. 64.
18. Stewart Patrick, ‘Weak States and Global Threats: Fact or Fiction?’, The Washington Quarterly,
Vol. 29, No. 2 (Spring 2006), pp. 27– 53; Edward Newman, ‘Weak States, State Failure, and
Terrorism’, Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Winter 2007), pp. 463– 88; Eka Ikpe,
‘Challenging the Discourse on Fragile States’, Conflict, Security and Development, Vol. 7, No. 1
(April 2007), pp. 85–124.
19. Justin Logan and Christopher Preble, ‘Fixing Failed States: A Cure Worse than the Disease?’ Harvard
International Review, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter 2008), pp. 62–6.
20. Stefan Mair, ‘A New Approach. The Need to Focus on Failing States’, Harvard International Review,
Vol. 29, No. 4 (Winter 2008), pp 52–5.
21. Adam David Morton, ‘The “Failed State” of International Relations’, New Political Economy, Vol. 10,
No. 3 (September 2005), pp. 371–9; Morten Boos and Kathleen M. Jennings, ‘Insecurity and
Development: The Rhetoric of the “Failed State”’, The European Journal of Development Research,
Vol. 17, No. 3 (2005), pp. 385 –95; Clement Eme Adibe, ‘Weak States and the Emerging Taxonomy
of Security in World Politics’, Futures, Vol. 26, No. 5 (June 1994), pp. 490– 505.
22. The Fund for Peace, ‘Failed State Index 2008’, available at http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.
php?option¼com_content&task¼view&id¼292&Itemid¼452
23. Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole, Global Report on Conflict, Governance and State Fragility
2008, Center for Systemic Peace, available at http://www.systemicpeace.org/Global%20Report%
202008.pdf
24. Vision of Humanity, ‘Global Peace Index Rankings’, available at http://www.visionofhumanity.org/
gpi/home.php
25. World Bank, ‘Worldwide Governance Indicators, 1996–2008’, available at http://info.worldbank.
org/governance/wgi/index.asp
26. Brookings, ‘Index of State Weakness in the Developing World’, available at http://www.brookings.
edu/reports/2008/02_weak_states_index.aspx
27. Gil Loescher, James Milner, Edward Newman and Gary Troeller (eds), Protracted Refugee
Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications (Tokyo: United Nations University
Press, 2008).
28. Jörg Raab and H. Brinton Milward, ‘Dark Networks as Problems’, Journal of Public Administration
Research and Theory, Vol. 13, No. 4 (October 2003), pp. 413– 39.
442 CONTEMPO RA RY SECURITY POLICY

29. Lyudmila Zaitseva and Kevin Hand, ‘Nuclear Smuggling Chains: Suppliers, Intermediaries, and
End-Users’, The American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 46, No. 6 (February 2003), pp. 822–44;
Rensselaer W. Lee III, Smuggling Armageddon (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin Press, 2000).
30. David M. Malone and Heiko Nitzschke, ‘Economic Agendas in Civil Wars: What We Know, What We
Need to Know’, Discussion Paper No. 2005/7 (Helsinki: UNU-WIDER, 2005), p. 4. See also Paul
Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and Grievance in Civil War’, World Bank Working Paper 2002/
03 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2003); Paul Collier, ‘Doing Well Out of War’, World Bank
Working Paper 1999/04 (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1999); Karen Ballentine and Heiko Nitzsche
(eds), Profiting from Peace: Managing the Resource Dimensions of Civil War (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 2005); Richard Snyder, ‘Does Lootable Wealth Breed Disorder? A Political Economy of
Extraction Framework’, Comparative Political Studies, Vol. 39, No. 8 (October 2006), pp. 943– 68;
Richard Snyder and Ravi Bhavnani, ‘Diamonds Blood and Taxes: A Revenue-Centered Framework
for Explaining Political Order’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 49, No. 4 (August 2005),
pp. 563– 97. This special issue of The Journal of Conflict Resolution contains other useful articles
on the subject: MacArtan Humphreys, ‘Natural Resources, Conflict, and Conflict Resolution:
Uncovering the Mechanisms’, pp. 508–37; James Ron, ‘Paradigm in Distress? Primary Commodities
and Civil War’, pp. 443– 50; James D. Fearon, ‘Primary Commodity Exports and Civil War’,
pp. 483– 507; and Collier and Hoeffler, ‘Resource Rents, Governance, and Conflict’, pp. 625– 33.
31. Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done about
it (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 31.
32. Erling Hog, ‘States of HIV Fragility: Capacity, Vulnerabilities, and Epidemic Evolution in
Mozambique’, ASCI Research Report No. 11, Clingendael Institute, Netherlands, April 2008;
Andrew T. Price-Smith, ‘Vicious Circle – HIV/AIDS, State Capacity, and National Security:
Lessons from Zimbabwe, 1990– 2005’, Global Health Governance, Vol. I, No. 1 (January 2007),
available at http://diplomacy.shu.edu/academics/global_health
33. Collier, The Bottom Billion (note 31), p. 31.
34. Jack Straw, Reordering the World: The Long-Term Implications of September 11 (London: Foreign
Policy Research Centre, 2002).
35. Hagel, ‘A Republican Foreign Policy’ (note 16); Lyman and Morrison, ‘The Terrorist Threat in Africa’
(note 16); Krasner and Pascual, ‘Addressing State Failure’ (note 16); Stephen Van Evera, ‘Bush
Administration, Weak on Terror’, Middle East Policy, Vol. 13, No. 4 (Winter 2006), pp. 28– 38.
36. Van Evera, ‘Bush Administration’ (note 35).
37. Newman, ‘Weak States, State Failure, and Terrorism’ (note 18).
38. Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979).
39. Newman, ‘Weak States, State Failure, and Terrorism’ (note 18).
40. Barry Buzan, Ole Waever and Jaap de Wilde, Security: A New Framework for Analysis (Boulder, CO:
Lynne Rienner, 1998), p. 32.
41. Robert I. Rotberg, ‘The Failure and Collapse of Nation-States: Breakdown, Prevention and Repair’,
in Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 2004), p. 42.
42. National Defense Strategy (Washington, DC: Department of Defense, June 2008), pp. 2– 3.
43. Available at www.africom.mil/AboutAFRICOM.asp. Also see the symposium on AFRICOM in
Contemporary Security Policy, Vol. 30, No. 1 (April 2009).
44. US Department of States, ‘About the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization’,
available at http://www.state.gov/s/crs/c12936.htm
45. UK National Security Strategy (Norwich: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 2008), p. 14.
46. Department for International Development, White Paper: Making Governance Work for the Poor
(Norwich: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office, 2006).
47. Department for International Development, Fighting Poverty to Build a Safer World: A Strategy for
Security and Development (London: DFID, 2005), p. 5.
48. Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States, DCD (2005) 11/REV.2 (Paris:
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2005), pp. 8– 10.
49. David Chandler, Empire in Denial. The Politics of State-Building (London: Pluto Press, 2006).
50. Stephen D. Krasner, ‘Sharing Sovereignty New Institutions for Collapsed and Failing States’,
International Security, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Fall 2004), pp. 85– 120, at p. 85.
51. Robert O. Keohane, ‘Political Authority after Intervention: Graduations in Sovereignty’, in
J.L. Holzgrefe and Keohane (eds), Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
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52. Stephen Krasner, ‘Compromising Westphalia’, International Security, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Winter 1996),
pp. 115– 51.
53. DFID Statistics on International Development 2008, see http://www.dfid.gov.uk/About-DFID/
Finance-and-performance/DFID-Expenditure-Statistics/Statistics-on-International-Development-2008/
54. These ideas are developed in Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond (eds), New
Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2009).
55. Rotberg, When States Fail (note 41).