08 Aug 2007: ISS Today: Somalia: The pass/fail system - Unworkable for States

8 August 2007: Somalia: The pass/fail system - Unworkable for States

 

For some years now it has become common to hear and read about failed states. Somalia, we are unfailingly told, is a failed state. Spirits sink upon reading that Afghanistan is a failing state. A South African expert observes that the large states of Africa (except his own) are weak and hopeless states. A commentator explains how Iraq is now the best example of state failure ... and so it goes.

 

The description of failed states has taken on a language of its own. At bottom of the heap is the collapsed state. Next are the collapsing states, followed closely by those that have failed. Slightly better off are the failing states, followed by weak states.

 

There is more. It is explained that states may not be that weak, but they do have ungoverned spaces. The better off have poorly governed spaces. Then there are ‘archipelago states’ – those that have a relatively solid center but where authority slips away as you near the periphery. In the border areas there is hardly any ‘state’ to be found.

 

There must be a reason for all this. In the post cold war world it has become quite fashionable to craft new language to describe phenomena that - it would seem- are a new feature of the world we live in. The notion of failed states has only grown in currency since the end of the cold war. But is this really a new phenomenon? It would appear that the two sides in that long conflict were strong until the Soviet system collapsed. Would this mean that the Soviet Union was the first failed state, despite holding membership of the UN Security Council as well as the nuclear club? Does the growing prosperity of Russia signal hope that out of state failure can come success? If we were to argue that history is full of examples of failed states, then I imagine we could describe all defeats that led to the occupation or dissolution of states as state failure of some sort of another.

 

I fear that the classification of states as ‘failing’ or similar may inadvertently add to the damage that the states concerned have already suffered, by declaring them to be unfit for serious international interaction, not to mention for business and investment. Just as the US has identified a number of states as ‘rogue states’,  part of the ‘axis of evil’, or state ‘sponsors’ of terrorism, the easy dismissal of a not inconsiderable number of countries as ‘failed’ serves as a new and unwelcome injury that is added to the wounds already inflicted upon the unfortunate countries concerned.

 

It is not always easy to understand just what is meant when one encounters the term `failed state`. Could a state with a strong military be considered a failed state? Would a state with a democratically elected government, but one that is not able to defend itself be considered a candidate for a successful state? Poles are emigrating in droves for better jobs in Western Europe. Would that mean that Poland is a failing state? For decades two particular states, Israel and Egypt, have been receiving huge amounts of aid - subsidies - from the United States, and yet we do not hear them described as failing, or even weak states.

 

Some states build walls for their protection: South Korea, East Germany, Israel, and now the US (along the Mexican border). Many would agree that the Berlin Wall demonstrated the state failure that was the German Democratic Republic. Does that apply to the other states that built walls?

 

Maybe one would argue that state failure has nothing to do with borders and security. Perhaps it is all about whether a people are content with the state, and with their living conditions. We do not hear of unrest in Saudi Arabia. Would we then be prepared to argue that a state that does not even allow women to drive a car, let alone vote, is a success as a state? Shouldn`t the disenfranchising of 50% of a population be a recipe for state failure on the highest order?

 

Let’s consider for a moment the so-called collapsed state of Somalia. Notwithstanding the efforts being made to get it back on its feet, many would admit that yes, most of Somalia has been stateless for some 15 years. But business has been brisk in Somalia for years. The country has faster and cheaper banking (informal) and telecommunication systems than many of its neighbors and countries further afield. The Somali shilling survives, not only in Somalia but in neighboring countries as well. Surely that must be a sign that a not insignificant constituency has confidence in the country.

 

The argument that terrorists feel comfortable in a country where there is no state has been made time and time again. But there is evidence to show that terrorists feel threatened in such societies for the same reasons are other people - they too fear the absence of security. Some argue that terrorists are more likely to thrive in well-ordered but un-vigilant societies - states that would not generally be on the list of ‘failed’ or ‘collapsing’ states.

 

It is time that a fresh view was taken of depictions of failed states, weak states, collapsed states, and the like, in order to arrive at a more honest - and less politically motivated and inaccurate - assessment of what makes states and societies tick. We may well discover that all states have elements of strength and failure and that the drawing of a line in the sand separating the sheep from the goats as it were, is both harmful and conceptually indefensible.

 

Hiruy Amanuel, Head: ICPAT,  ISS Addis Ababa