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"Failed state", again

16 October 2005, 18:00 PM
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
By Habibul Haque Khondker National University of Singapore
16 October 2005, 18:00 PM
According to the Foreign Policy, (July/August 2005) "U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has warned that "ignoring failed states creates problems that sometimes come back to bite us." French President Jacques Chirac has spoken of "the threat that failed states carry for the world's equilibrium." One of the major concerns of the United States has been how to deal with the so-called failed states. In the last century the major concern of the big powers was other big powers but now it seems that their worry is the failing state. Allegedly, the failed states are sources of drugs, illegal migrants, and terrorism and so on to the stable West. But how far the fear of failed states is real or imaginary? And if the fear is real, what are the forces responsible for the state failure? And, what is the role of the major powers in the creation of the "failed states"?

The definition of the "failed state" is still unsatisfactory. Max Weber, the famous German sociologist, defined state as an organisation with monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Therefore, states without such monopoly qualify as a failed state. Outside intervention can be both a symptom of and a trigger for state collapse. A failed state may be subject to involuntary restrictions of its sovereignty, such as political or economic sanctions, the presence of foreign military forces on its soil, or other military constraints, such as a no-fly zone."

Clearly these attributes of a "failed state" are drawn from really existing failed states such as Iraq, Somalia, and Haiti. The list of the top ten failed states also includes (1) Ivory Coast, (2) Democratic Republic of Congo, and (3) Sudan. Haiti is ranked 10 and Iraq as 11. Sadly, Bangladesh ties the 17th position with Burundi.

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The list of 60 states is divided and colour-coded according to their risk of failure. The first 20 countries are coded red, followed by orange, and the last 20 are yellow. Pakistan and Nepal are ranked 34th and 35th respectively.

According to the magazine, "The World Bank has identified about 30 "low-income countries under stress," whereas Britain's Department for International Development has named 46 "fragile" states of concern."

The Fund for Peace, an independent research organisation, and the Washington-based Foreign Policy have conducted a global ranking of weak and failing states. "Using 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, they ranked 60 states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict. The resulting index provides a profile of the new world disorder of the 21st century and demonstrates that the problem of weak and failing states is far more serious than generally thought. About 2 billion people live in insecure states, with varying degrees of vulnerability to widespread civil conflict."

In order for the government to earn even a semblance of credibility it has to act decisively and fairly to fight terrorism before the problem gets out of hand. If political considerations mar decisions as to whether a crime should or should not be investigated that is as hopeless a situation as it gets. The fact that following the recent bombings the law enforcing agencies could make a number of arrests negate the idea of state failure.

The characterisation of Bangladesh as a "failed state" or seeing 2 billion people at risk by the Foreign Policy may be an exaggeration. But sometimes an error on the side of caution is preferable to denial of an ailment. At one level, I worry about not just a failed state but also a failed world but there is no excuse for not setting our own house in order.