Dr. Kevin Lasher POL 315: Politics of War & Security

Fragile States (Failed States)

Fragile States: Definition “Countries where the government cannot or will not deliver its basic functions to the majority of its people, including the poor.” United Kingdom Department of International Development

Fragile States: Definition “States are fragile when state structures lack the political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction, development, and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations.” Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

Fragile States: Definition “States in crisis – where the central government does not exert effective control over its own territory or is unable or unwilling to assure the provision of vital services to significant parts of its territory, where legitimacy of government is weak or non-existent, and where violent conflict is a reality or a great risk.” US Agency for International Development

Fragile States: Definition “Countries facing particularly severe developmental challenges: weak institutional capacity, poor governance, and political instability. Often these countries experience ongoing violence as the resideu of past severe conflict. Ongoing armed conflicts affect three out of four fragile states.” World Bank

Fragile States: Definition “Fragile states are thus to be defined as states that are failing, or at risk of failing, with respect to authority, comprehensive basic service provision, or legitimacy.” CRISE: Center for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity

Fragile States: Definition Authority failures – state lacks authority to protect its citizens from: 1) Significant organized political violence, often described as civil war 2) The state authority does not extend to a significant portion of the country 3) There is periodic political or communal violence causing deaths and destruction 4) There are very high levels of criminality with almost no state action to control it and virtually no functioning justice system

Fragile States: Definition Service failures – the state fails to provide adequate delivery to all citizens of basic services such as: 1) Health services 2) Basic education 3) Water and sanitation 4) Basic transport and energy infrastructure 5) Reduction in income poverty Ineffective tax collection system

Fragile States: Definition Legitimacy failures – the state may enjoy only limited support among the people; it is typically not democratic, often with the military ruling directly or strongly supporting and dominating the government. 1) Lack of democratic elections 2) A strong role for the military 3) Acquisition of power by force 4) Suppression of the opposition 5) Government control of the media 6) Exclusion of significant groups of the population from power 7) Absence of civil and political liberties

Fragile States: Definition Fragile states perform poorly on any or all of the components of authority failures, service failures, and legitimacy failures

So What ?

Fragile States and Civil War

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 11/15 fragile states in 2015 are experiencing civil war  13/15 fragile states in 2015 are experiencing civil war or have done so in last ten years  Cote d’Ivoire ( ), Haiti ( )

Fragile States and Civil War  Not all civil wars occur in fragile states  Not all fragile states experience civil war  Strong relationship between status as a fragile state and the experience of civil war

Fragile States and Civil War  140,000 – 330,000 deaths in Syrian civil war since 2011 (also, refugee crisis)  1-5 million deaths in Democratic Republic of Congo since 1997

Fragile States: Other problems  Extreme poverty, crime, disease within fragile state  Possible humanitarian crises  Refugees to other states  Epidemics/disease to other states  Drag on global economy  Spread instability, crime, violence to other states  Maritime piracy  Haven for international criminals and terrorists (Al Qaeda in Sudan and Afghanistan)

Fragile States: Causes  States that emerged from colonial domination in 1950s and 1960s  Africa, Middle East, Asia

Fragile States: Causes  Borders in Africa and Middle East were drawn with little consideration of racial, ethnic, cultural, religious divisions  “Artificial” and divided states that have retained their arbitrary borders

Fragile States: Causes Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, 1987-present  Poor governance, especially leaders that are corrupt and do little to serve their own people  Authoritarian kleptocrats (rule by thieves)

Fragile States: Causes Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, 1987-present  Mobutu of Dem. Rep. Congo, Duvaliers of Haiti, Karzai of Afghanistan, many others  Ineffective leadership versus corrupt leadership

Fragile States: Causes  Not the case that all fragile states have poor geography or lack or resources  Some have abundant resources which “feed” the bank accounts of their rulers

Fragile States: Status Quo  Respect the sanctity of territorial integrity  Aid, including emergency humanitarian aid  Peacekeeping  Short-term governance These do not seem to be improving the problem much

Fragile States: Status Quo  Westphalian sovereignty is the principle of international law that each nation-state has sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs and the principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of the nation- state by external powers

Fragile States: Status Quo  A nation-state’s control over its domestic affairs shall not be violated

Fragile States: Status Quo  National sovereignty is violated in many circumstances  However, there is a strong tendency to avoid intervention in cases of poor governance or state failure  Other states or the international community rarely intervene in cases where a government is dysfunctional or is grossly mistreating its own people  Sovereign immunity for horrible or corrupt leaders This prohibition seems to be weakening a bit in last decade or so

Fragile States: Status Quo  About $150 billion in aid from governments was provided in 2014  Does not include billions of dollars in private (NGO) aid

Fragile States: Status Quo  Much foreign aid supports corrupt elites in recipient countries  Significant literature on the flaws and failures of current foreign aid regime  Unlikely that major reform will occur in near future

Fragile States: Status Quo  Unclear that massive increase in aid (not likely) would make a major difference  Not an argument for eliminating foreign aid, just a realization of its limitations in assisting fragile states

Fragile States: Status Quo  Sixteen peacekeeping operations ongoing in 2015  Budget of $8.5 billion in 2015  106,000 uniformed personnel in 2015  Peacekeeping in fragile states only upon invitation and in aftermath of civil war  We will come back to topic of peacekeeping

Fragile States: Status Quo  Where peace-keeping involves some aspects of nation- building, there is usually a a short-term time interval (2-5 years)

Fragile States: Status Quo  Responding to state failure is an inherently difficult project with no easy road to success  Not all solutions to state failure will be fully satisfying to all stakeholders, real tradeoffs are necessary

Fragile States: Status Quo “Whether traditional or alternative responses are adopted, tackling state failure in the 21 st century will require tremendous patience. Long time horizons – on the order of at least one to two decades – are needed to effectively respond to state decay.”

Fragile States: Status Quo No quick fixes Utilitarian: help those that can be helped Don’t give up because of difficulty

Fragile States: New Solutions 1) Territory exchange 2) Shared sovereignty 3) Trusteeships 4) Stateless peoples All unlikely to be implemented

Fragile States: New Solutions “Left to their own devices, collpasedand badly governed states will not fix themselves because they have limited administrative capacity, not least with regard to maintaining internal security.” Stephen Krasner

Fragile States: New Solutions “To reduce international threats and improve the prospects for individuals in such polities, alternative institutional arrangements supported by external actors, such as de facto trusteeships and shared sovereignty, should be added to the list of policy options.” Stephen Krasner

Territory Exchange “Territory from failing State B given to better functioning State A, especially if territory and State A share common ethnic, religious, or cultural ties A B

Territory Exchange Territory exchange instead of seeking full independence A B

Territory Exchange Very difficult to implement in current international system A B

Shared Sovereignty 1) Developed state takes over certain functions for a fragile state for a specified period of time 2) “Contract” signed between two states 3) Functions such as judiciary, monetary policy, policing, security

Shared Sovereignty 1) Best to have “helper state” not from same region 2) Partnership not domination by “helper state” 3) Formal agreement with fragile state

Shared Sovereignty 1) US-Japan defense alliance, other states assist in reconciliation commissions, long-term peace- keepers on police functions 2) Soviet dominance/cooperation of East European states during Cold War

Fragile States: New Solutions 1) UN Charter has a provision for trusteeships 2) Would entail strong state to “take over” extreme fragile state with permission of home state and UN Security Council 3) Benevolent neo-colonialism

Fragile States: New Solutions 1) Would occur only in the most extreme conditions 2) Five-ten year period of trustee rule 3) Very difficult to see how international community would approve such action

Stateless Zones  Raises possibilities of people living in “stateless zones” with some form of local government but not corresponding national government  Unclear how it would function in real world

Fragile States: New Solutions  In addition to the difficulty in approval, shared sovereignty and trusteeships raise serious questions about neo- colonialism  Only applied in the most extreme cases  Supervised by UN and/or UN Security Council

Conclusion  Fragile states and civil wars within them are likely to continue for the foreseeable future  Unlikely new solutions would only lessen a critical situation in the modern international system

Conclusion  Because of human suffering, danger of “regional contamination,” and possibility of providing terrorist havens, issue of fragile states cannot be ignored y international community