Repairing Failed States

In a number of territories primarily situated in the poorer parts of the world, the state no longer performs its basic security and development functions. Beyond causing hardship for their own citizens, failed states provide breeding grounds of organized crime and terrorism.

The “failed states list” of 2008 of the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy is topped by Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Chad, and Iraq (in this order). These states have failed for different reasons, for example a foreign intervention in Iraq or the presence of a stationary bandit in Zimbabwe, but there are often similarities in the mechanisms that lead to state failure, for example the availability of natural resources.

State failure causes massive movements of refugees and internally displaced peoples, severe economic decline, and the spread of violence and crime. 9/11 has made the world realize that the effects of state failures do not stop at national borders. (Re-) Establishing state authority in these territories is one of the most challenging tasks of our time. In particular in light of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, pessimism is dominating today’s discourse. This pessimism should be motivation for searching for innovative approaches to state-building in such difficult circumstances. “Repairing failed states” requires solutions that are ultimately driven by the citizens of the respective country. Yet, the global community – governments, international organizations and multinational corporations – can (and sometimes must) assist the citizens in getting into the driver’s seat. From this perspective, this session discusses the following questions:

1. How to transform disenfranchised populations into stakeholders of a process of state-building? Which are specific mechanisms to reach different groups of these internal stakeholders (political elites, business elites, “ordinary citizens”)?
2. What is the role of external stakeholders? Do we need a new approach to “development aid”, as its current mode of delivery in weak states hampers state-building? How to improve the interplay between military interventions, humanitarian relief, and development assistance? What is the role of international business in state-building processes? Do we need special supervisory mechanisms for international investors in weak states, such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative.
3. Can we identify general lessons to be learnt from successes and failures of fixing failed states, for example from Iraq, Afghanistan or former Yugoslavia? Where to put priorities in re-establishing state-functions and how to sequence interventions and policies (security, infrastructure, basic service delivery)? Or are these situations too country-specific for any generalizations?