Failed states: conceptual fortification

[This was published in Dhaka Courier on 13 September 2013. This is, in fact, an extension of the article ‘Failed states: conceptual focus’ published in Dhaka Courier on 8 July 2011]

Curiously enough, both the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Leader of the Opposition Begum Khaleda Zia are, of course, from their respective viewpoints, nowadays erratically blaming each other for pushing Bangladesh towards the hemisphere of failed states. Truth is that it is equally confusing and alarming for us all. So, the asking is what does a failed state imply? How far Bangladesh is away from or closer to it? Are the sayings merely political in line with struggle for power or something more than this?

Beyond question it is that the concept of ‘Failed State’ has in the meantime become an object of interest, concentration and contest to almost all the member states of the United Nations as well as the think-tanks, statesmen and leaders of various folds, beliefs and backgrounds across the globe as one of the burning issues of the day and the matter has been boiled, fueled, fomented and intensified more severely after the publication of the book ‘Failed States: The Abuse of power and the Assault on Democracy’ written by the most authoritative contemporary American left intellectual Professor Noam Chomsky in 2004. In this book, he assertively identified USA also as the foremost failed state from the point of view of the immediate past and, in particular, the recent activities of the Bush administration and American domestic and foreign policy. America being the leader of the unipolar world has not only become desperate, undemocratic and dam care externally but, its dealing with its citizens at home in all most all major issues involving a peaceful life and living with maximum benefits of a democratic welfare state has also been marked seriously with notes of interrogations, anxieties, dismays, fears and uncertainties. Agonies and frustrations on the same lines and scales in diverse fashions and modes are being exhibited and confirmed in the writings of others predominantly comes on sight the name of Harvard Professor Robert I. Rotberg. Interestingly enough, it is also heard and told in many ways that Bangladesh is either within the ambit of a failed state or it is not far away from it or a deep-rooted conspiracy is taking place to make Bangladesh a failed state. More important is that the matter is now-a-days being sounded off and often in a high tone by our political leaders and law-makers both from the ruling and opposition parties. Therefore, if the slur of being failed states entails both USA and Bangladesh, then the question crops up in a minute even in the mind of a layman, ‘what does the concept ‘failed state’ sense truly?’

Long before I wrote two articles on failed states one was titled ‘Failed States: Understanding and Misunderstanding’ (Daily Star, 25 February 2008) and the other being ‘Conceptual Understanding of Failed States’ (New Nation, 8 July 2008) and the article in issue, in fact, is more up to date, accommodative, comprehensive, comparative and analytical in its overall entity and entirety.

Speaking pragmatically, numbers of attempts have been made, and are still being made, to define the concept of a failed state; some analyze it from the point of view of the overall standing, both structural or non-structural, others judge it on the basis of its actual capacity of legitimate use of force while few consider it applying a set of indicators to certain areas necessary for the onward move of a state

Taking all such possible approaches, focuses and indicators in the right perspective, it can be said that a failed state is a status or standing of a state that include a government so weak or ineffective with a little practical control over much of its territory, non-provision of public services, wide spread corruption and criminality, refugees and involuntary movement of population, an extensive informal market, impenetrable bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield more power than the state over a certain area but do not compete with the state, sharp economic decline or a number of other factors. But it’s a priori that any focus on understanding the concept of failed states remains ambiguous and misunderstood without due references to the leading icons in this field that entail-----

Max Weber’s analysis:

Weber’s experiment that a state may be said to "succeed" if it maintains a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force within its borders and when this is broken (e.g., through the dominant presence of warlords, militias, or terrorism), the very existence of the state becomes dubious, and the state becomes a failed state is also faced with further complexities.

Researchers and analysts in their interpretations of ‘ a monopoly on the legitimate use of force’ held almost in a similar expression that Max Weber without any ambiguity explains that only the state has the means of production necessary for physical violence (politics as vocation). This means that the state does not require legitimacy for achieving monopoly on the means of violence (de facto) but will need one if it needs to use it (de jure).

The term is also used in the sense of a state that has been rendered ineffective (i.e., has nominal military/police control over its territory only in the sense of having no armed opposition groups directly challenging state authority; in short, the "no news is good news" approach) and is not able to enforce its laws uniformly because of high crime rates, extreme political corruption, an extensive informal market, impenetrable bureaucracy, judicial ineffectiveness, military interference in politics, cultural situations in which traditional leaders wield more power than the state over a certain area but do not compete with the state, or a number of other factors.

Crisis States Research Centre’s approach:

Based within the Development Studies Institute (DESTIN) of the London School of Economics and funded by a grant from the UK Department for International Development (DFID)), Crisis States Research Centre defines a failed state as condition of state collapse – e.g. a state that can no longer perform its basic security and development functions and that has no effective control over its territory and borders. A failed state is one that can no longer reproduce the conditions for its own existence. This term is used in very contradictory ways in the policy community (for instance, there is a tendency to label a “poorly performing” state as “failed” – a tendency the Crisis States Research Centre rejects).

It is further to be noted that this think-tank has meanwhile embarked upon a broad-based, comprehensive and far-reaching research-oriented drive. To the very purposes, following an initial phase of research focusing on the ability of public authorities at local, national and international levels to manage conflict, the Centre is now embarking on a second phase which will build on the concepts, categories and hypotheses developed earlier and apply rigorous comparative analysis to a carefully chosen set of case studies. The research will look at actual processes of collapse into war and intense periods of violence, as well as at prolonged episodes of violence and war where the state has remained intact. The Centre’s work in Phase Two will also examine differential experiences in securing peace and in pursuing reconstruction.

Other think-tank organizations like Center for Defense Information, Global Policy Forum working in the same line hold, more or less, the similar views about the definitions and interpretations of failed states.

Fund for Peace’s twelve indicators’ focus:

Since 2005, keeping all these definitions, focuses and analyses in a broad standpoint, the United States think-tank, the Fund for Peace and the Magazine Foreign Policy, publishes an annual index called the Failed States Index. This is the most up to date and comprehensive approach in this field till the date. In fact, the FSI is prepared by the Fund for Peace and published by Foreign Policy Magazine.

Qualification for being included in the Index:

Determined solely by membership in the United Nations, the list only takes into account sovereign states for which quite a few territories like Taiwan, the Palestinian Territories, Northern Cyprus, Kosovo, and Western Sahara are not included in the list notwithstanding some enjoy recognitions as sovereign states by some nations.

Indicators of state vulnerability:

Ranking or index’s rank are based on the total scores of the 12 indicators of which four are social (1.Demographic pressure 2.massive movement of refugees and internally displaced people 3.Legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance based on recent or past injustices and 4.Chronic and sustained human rights) under the head of Social Indicators, two are economic ( 5.Uneven economic development along group lines and 6.Sharp or severe economic decline) under the head of Economic Indicators and five are political(7.Criminalization and or delegitimisation of the state 8.Progressive deterioration of public services 9.Widespread violation of human rights 10. Security apparatus as ‘state within a state’, 11. Rise of factionalized elites and 12. Intervention of other states or external factors under the head of Political Indicators.

For each indicator, ratings are placed on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being the lowest intensity (most stable) and 10 being the highest intensity (least stable). The total score is the sum of the 12 indicators and is on a scale of 0-120, and, accordingly, the failed states are categorized into Alert, Warning, No Information/ Dependent Territory, Moderate and Sustainable based on their proximity to the total sum of the 12 indicators.

The indicators are not designed to forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. Instead, they are meant to measure a state's vulnerability to collapse or conflict.

For further convenience of clarity and easy understandability, countries are categorized into red, orange and yellow Zones. All countries in the red, orange, or yellow categories demonstrate some features that constitute parts of their societies and institutions vulnerable to failure. Special attention has been paid to the reality that some in the yellow zone may be failing at a faster rate than those in the more dangerous orange or red zones, and therefore could experience violence or deteriorating landscape in any form or manner sooner. Conversely, some in the red zone, though critical, may display some positive signs of recovery or be deteriorating leisurely, giving them time to adopt mitigating strategies.

Publication of Failed States Index (FSI) annually:

Prepared by Fund for Peace, Foreign Policy Magazine has so far published nine failed states indexes (FSI) starting from 2005 to 2013, which in brief are:

FSI 2005: 76 states were included in the maiden list of 2005 of which 33 were classified as "alert" and 43 as "warning" (ratings better than "warning" were not done in this year).

FSI 2006: 146 states were included in the 2006 list of which 28 were classified as "alert", 78 as "warning", 27 as "moderate" and 13 as "sustainable". Of the worst 20 states,

FSI 2007: 177 states were included in the list of which 32 were classified as "alert", 97 as "warning", 33 as "moderate" and 15 as "sustainable". Of the worst 20 states,

FSI 2008: 177 states were included in the list of which 35 were classified as ‘alert’, 92 as ‘warning’ 35 as ‘moderate’ and 15 as ‘sustainable’.

FSI 2009: 177 states were included in the list, of which 38 were classified as "alert", 93 as "warning", 33 as "moderate" and 13 as "sustainable".

FSI 2010: 177 states were included in the list, of which 1-37 were classified as ‘alert’, 92 as ‘warning’, 35 as ‘moderate and 13 as sustainable. It is really interesting to note that Bangladesh did not fall within the lowest 20. It went back to 24 with a total score of 91.1 on a scale of 120.

FSI 2011: 177 states were included in the list of which 35 were classified as ‘alert’, 89 as ‘warning’, 41 as ‘moderate’ and 13 as sustainable. Bangladesh this time was ranked as 25^th with a total score of 94.4 on a scale of 120.

FSI 2012: 177 states were included in the list of which 33 were as the very high alert, 32 as the very warning states, 38 as the high warning states, 17 as the warning states, 16 as the less stable states, 16 as stable states, 9 as the very stable states, 11 as the sustainable states and 1 (Finland) as the very sustainable state. Bangladesh this time was ranked as 28 in the alert states with a total score of 92.2 on a scale of 120.

FSI 2013: 178 states were included in the list of which 35 were classified as alert, 91 as warning, 37 as stable and 13 as sustainable. Bangladesh this time was ranked as 29 in the alert states with a total score 92.5 on a scale of 120.

On the question of evaluations, following points deserve to be sounded in a qualified mood and manner:

A serious perception is on in the minds of many that with the rise of USA as uni-leader of the uni-polar world--after the fall of bi-polar world where USSR with its avowed ideological umbrella ‘socialism’ played a dominant role on question of balance of power--- its rivals, near or distant, are now under the new circumstances well discovered and detected within the fold of capitalism itself on the one hand and on the other China’s marching onward with a cap of two systems and Muslim ummah’s growing importance with more than fifty sovereign states with memberships in UN remain as standing threats, material or otherwise, to her in various forms, natures and proliferations. Changes and transformations in geo-strategies have become further a reality.

Truly speaking, feedbacks and consequences of all these coupled with new vibrations and oscillations in the configuration of the old concept of underdeveloped, developing and developed states have resultantly furthermore heavily been jerked. Even the so-called definitions of ‘development’ conceived, and being carried ruthlessly by World Bank, IFM and other national, regional and international financial institutions, organizations and donor agencies are today frequently facing queries for non-availability of desired fruits, old or new, in a very acute form. In the face of the rapidly sliding of so-called capitalism towards erosion its sustainers, ironically enough, are desperately looking for new ideas, doctrines or systems. Here the concept of failed states might have a role to play otherwise in favor of the dominating states i.e. to keep a state under phobia passing a message about their rank and status in the FSI.

Regardless of all these speculations, one thing need to be taken care of is that there may be some sorts of designs behind such determinations and mathematics, notwithstanding anything contained in the concept, not theory, of failed states. Because inductive logic tells and warns us in unequivocal expressions that nothing comes out of nothing and each and every event is the result of a multiple causes, near or distant.

Yes, there is a strong current of thoughts in the realm of skeptics and hyper-critics everywhere in the world that the Fund for Peace and Magazine Foreign Policy are not free from the influence, covert or overt, of those who matter in the administration of the United States of America. Therefore, a logical asking hunting the very minds of all is that Is it really possible on the part of them to turn its attention also to the hyper state United States of America that all the time is suffering from hyper-tensions and hyper-sense of insecurity( in particular after the great episode of 9/11? Are the contents in the book ‘Failed States: The Abuse of power and the Assault on Democracy’ are mere utterances in the overall contexts of USA? Should not Fund for Peace devise necessary tools to project real status of developed states including USA in their respective perspectives?

In the conclusion it can safely be noted that there is no legal basis of such index of failed states. Neither United Nations nor European Union nor any other international body nor even a sovereign nation state can legally stand by this. To what extent such inquiries will be positive, functional and useful is still a matter to be seen in practice. More important is that the geopolitical consequences of such assessments, determinations and declarations shall have to be taken into serious consideration in this regard. Does it pass any bizarre signal for the developing countries entailing Bangladesh in the end?

Therefore, from the standpoint of Bangladesh, let our leaders in Bangladesh be pragmatic, tactful and responsible more while referring to the concept of failed states. We should not die into oblivion that statesmanship even in Bangladesh context calls for vision and mission for our entering into the domain of middle income courtiers in the very near future.