Failed States Posted by Michael Cohen

Today in the Washington Post, Susan Rice and Stewart Patrick have an important op-ed about the growing ranks of the world's failed states.

According to their "Index of State Weakness in the Developing World," nearly 60 countries -- more than a quarter of all UN members -- are unable to meet the basic requirements of statehood. This is truly a shocking number and it lays bare just how dependent many nations are on outside assistance to simply survive.

This is an important contribution to our research on failed states, however, where Rice and Patrick fall a bit short is in how they suggest dealing with these challenges.

Virtually all of their recommendation deal with the specifics of US foreign assistance, but none are focused on what may be the most important element of helping failed states out of their current malaise - the utilization of non-state actors, such as NGOs, philanthropic and aid organizations, development consultants and even corporations. Without the assistance and benevolence of these groups, many of these countries would collapse into anarchy or simply cease to exist.

Strengthening these groups, working more closely with them and ensuring they are properly accountable should our focus when it comes to dealing with failed states. I, for one, simply don't think it's realistic to assume that the US government can or will be able to put a serious dent in this enormous challenge.

While I applaud Rice and Patrick's efforts I fear that they are looking at the challenge of not only failed states, but the future of American foreign policy through the usual prism of state-to-state relations when the more important question going forward is will we recognize the limitations of American power and begin to more closely incorporate non-state actors into the conduction and implementation of American foreign policy.

Comments

[Mike M.]

Michael, that's a good point about NGOs but it seems like China through its "infrastructure in exchange for discount resources" deals is really showing that state to state relations are very imporant. Of course, China does these deals through its companies but those are state owned companies. Not saying that we should copy China's model, or that we could live with ourselves if we did, but it does affirm the role of state power.

[Dan Kervick]

I don't see how the authors can presume to distill meaningful or practical policy recommendations from this mere "index". The report contains nothing that deserves to be regarded as serious science. There is no serious attempt to distinguish symptoms from causes, or to differentiate causal levels. There is no sustained analysis of how states get to be weak or failed in the first place, or of the factors that keep them in that condition. There is no effort to distinguish failures of governance from systemic social failures or chronic social incapacities. There is no assessment of the costs or feasability of alternative remedial measures. You just have some rankings and a few observed correlations, and then the policy recommendations seemingly come out of nowhere.

It might be useful to have an index that measures degrees of weakness or failure. But an index isn't an analysis. The index in itself provides no way of determining whether the policy suggestions at the end of the report are just feel-good measures that answer to pre-existing prejudices, or realistic means of addressing extraordinarily complex problems. This "user-friendly tool" for policy-makers just doesn't seem sophisticated enough to provide anything more than junk policy.