One of the first problems in dealing with failed states is in defining exactly
what they are. Several definitions have been developed by scholars in the
field such as the following:
• Robert I. Rotberg notes that failed states are tense, deeply conflicted,
dangerous, and bitterly contested by warring factions70;
• Robert H. Jackson sees failed states as states which cannot or will not
safeguard minimal civil conditions, i.e. peace, order, security, etc.
domestically71;
• Hans‐Joachim Spanger argues that failed states can be defined in
terms of the demise of governmental functions that are considered
standard for an internationally recognised state72 ;
• William J. Olson suggests that the list of failed states could be
expanded if one were to include states facing serious “internal
problems that threaten their continued coherence or significant
internal challenges to their political order. 73
• Ralph Peters, while not actually defining a failed state as such, notes
that globalisation demands conformity to the practices of the global
leaders. In addition to the traditional indicators of failure he notes that
new predictive tools have emerged which are based in culture. These
indicators are the restrictions on the free flow of information, the
subjugation of women, the inability to accept responsibility for
individual or collective failure, the extended family or clan as the basic
70
Robert I Rothberg, ʺThe New Nature of Nation‐State Failure.ʺ The Washington Quarterly
Vol 25 No 3, 2002, 85‐96.
71
Robert H. Jackson. ʺSurrogate Sovereignty? Great Power Responsibility and Failed Statesʺ
Institute of International Relations, The University of British Columbia, 1998, 2.
72
Hans ‐Joachim Spanger. ʺFailed State or Failed Concept? Objections and Suggestionsʺ
Peace Research Institute, Frankfurt,2000. Available from
http://www.ippu.purdue.edu/failed_states/2000/papers/spanger.html (Accessed 27
September, 2003)
73 William J. Olson, ʺThe New World Disorder: Governability and Development.ʺ in Max G. Manwaring, ed. Gray Area Phenomena: Confronting New World Disorder, Boulder: Westview
unit of social organisation, the domination by a restrictive religion, the
low valuation of education, and the low prestige assigned to work.74
One of the problems of these definitions is that they concentrate almost
exclusively on the extreme cases of state failure. Carment argues that state‐
failure is a process of relative decay and that states can be placed along a
“development continuum” and characterised as “strong, weak, failed and
collapsed”.75 Gros places states along a continuum beginning with those
states that meet the classical Weberian criteria of statehood and ending with
those that met none of these criteria of successful statehood.76
Dorff noted that one concept of state failure had its conceptual roots in the
works of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau.77 Viewed from this perspective the
authority of the state is dependent upon the consent of the governed to
accept that authority and the rules that go along with it. Moreover, the
relationship is two‐pronged in that the citizens agree to accept that authority
and legitimacy and agree to abide by the rules, while the state accepts the
responsibility to deliver certain political goods and services (health,
education, security and so on). In a weak state, failure occurs when the state
is no longer able to meet its responsibilities to its citizens. Such cases may
arise from insurgencies or civil wars as in Liberia and Sierra Leone, war‐
lordism as in Somalia, or the general breakdown of government as in Haiti.78
However, there are also cases where the failure of a state comes, not from
states with too little power, but from states with too much power and leaders
74 Peters, Ralph. ʺSeven Signs of Non‐Competitive States.ʺ Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly (Spring 1998), 36‐47.
75
David Carment, ʺAssessing State Failure: Implications for Theory and Policy,ʺ Third World
Quarterly 24, no. 3 (2003), 409.
76 Jean‐Germain Gros, ʺTowards a Taxonomy of Failed States in the New World Order: Decaying Somalia, Liberia, Rwanda and Haiti,ʺ Third World Quarterly 17, no. 3 (1996), 457.
77 Robert H. Dorff, ʺFailed States after 9/11: What Did We Know and What Have We Learned?,ʺ International Studies Perspectives 6 (2005), 22.
who opt to misuse that power, as in the kleptocratic rule of Sese Seko
Mobutu in the Congo.79
From the foregoing it can be seen that the critical element of failure is the
erosion or loss of legitimacy of the state because of its ineffectiveness in
providing to its citizens the political goods and services for which it is
responsible, either though a weakening of state capacity, or because the state
power is used unjustly to oppress those citizens.80 Additionally, state failure
should be regarded as a gradation or continuum, which ranges from weak
states through failed states to collapsed states. In this case a failed state is one
that meets a specific set of conditions and excludes states that only meet
some of the criteria, which can then be classed as weak or failing states
depending on the extent of their decline. A collapsed state is an extreme
version of a failed state where there is a total vacuum of authority.
Only a few of the world’s states can be described as failed or collapsed but,
there are many dozens more that are better described as weak or failing, and
possible candidates for total failure. The distinction between weak and
failing states is rarely clear in practice, therefore, for clarity in this thesis they
are combined and will be characterised as “fragile states”.81 Although the
above assists in understanding and defining state failure what is required in
reality, is a method of identifying and ranking fragile and failed states
especially if this is to be applied to an intervention strategy.
79
Ibid.
80 The unwillingness of a state to provide for the protection of its citizens creates problems when determining whether a humanitarian intervention is justifiable or not as autocratic
regimes differ significantly. State failure due to inability or incompetence is different from
failing due to being a corrupt, “evil” state. Therefore, this thesis concentrates on
interventions that occur due to a lack of state capacity with the possible exception of Kosovo
(which was not an independent state) and which, as will be examined in Chapter 9 was in
many ways a watershed in the history of humanitarian intervention.
81
USAID also uses this term but includes failed states within the definition. See