Barbarian at the Gates?

Image copyright John MacDonald, published in Walt (1997).

They used to be ‘failed states’, now they are ‘fragile states’, a loosely bounded set of states that are “failing, or at risk of failing, with respect to authority, comprehensive service entitlements or legitimacy” (Stewart and Brown 2009:3). The debate about what exactly constitutes state fragility and which states are fragile is ongoing.  But my question here is: why, according to the people who matter in the development policy world, should we (citizens and policy-makers in rich countries) care about fragile states? Is it on the grounds of morality? After all, we’re told, a large percentage of the poorest people in the world live in these fragile places. Well, it seems not to be that simple.

According to DFID:  “In an interdependent world, insecurity can easily spread. Development agencies cannot ignore the impact that security threats at all levels – local, national and global – have on poor people. At the same time, the world community cannot ignore the critical role of poverty and inequality in increasing risks for us all. We need to ensure that, as an international community, we make progress on both security and development” (2005:8).

I will look more closely at the implications of linking development and security in my next post. Here, I want to point out that DFID is urging (itself, ostensibly) to do more and better in fragile states because “in an interdependent world, insecurity can easily spread”. Security, as a concept in development policy and literature, is rather hard to pin down, it’s poorly theorised.  Whose security are we really talking about? What does insecurity mean?  Here, however, it appears that insecurity is largely contained within fragile states, but there is a possibility of it spreading.  To where? To the country in which DFID is headquartered.  The fragile states literature attempts to explain the drivers of insecurity and instability in these states and to prescribe treatments for this disease.  And apparently we need a cure quickly, because we are closer than ever to the patient in this “interconnected world”.

Anderson sums up a common prescription for fragile states in this way: “Reforming governance arrangements to ensure that they ‘deliver’ is thus seen to have both curative and preventive power: good governance is the medicine needed to heal a fragile post-conflict state, an antidote that can prevent a fragile state from collapsing into violent conflict” (2008:12).

Fragile states are thus seen as isolated entities of malaise characterised by poor governance and lack of trust between government and citizens (Ghani and Lockhart 2008). Consequently, there is little or no attempt to look for causes of state fragility in global political economy systems and structures (Anderson 2008).

State fragility can create conditions for conflict and the spread of instability that may threaten rich donor countries.  But it troubles me that this is the justification that is being provided for providing aid to these countries.  It troubles me for two reasons.  First, this kind of justification highlights the incredibly uneven, politicised way in which aid has flowed to conflict-affected countries (think of Afghanistan or Pakistan pre and post-9/11).  Second, I find it difficult to believe that aid programs built around this theory and planned in rich donor countries will balance the two goals of securing the donor country and reducing poverty in the receiving country.  Furthermore, the apolitical explanations for state fragility provided by fragile states theories obscure many highly problematic and dysfunctional relationships between donor countries and conflict-affected countries, relationships that may, in fact, be fuelling these conflicts, or, at best, perpetuating them.

References:

Andersen, L. (2008) 'Fragile States on the International Agenda', Part I in Fragile Situations: Background papers, Danish Institute for International Studies, Copenhagen.

DFID (2005) Fighting poverty to build a safer world: a strategy for security and development, Department for International Development.

Ghani, A. & Lockhart, C. (2008) Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, Oxford University Press, New York.

Stewart, F. & Brown, G. (2009) ‘Fragile States’, CRISE Working Paper No. 51, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, QEH, University of Oxford. 

Walt, S. (1997) ‘Building up New Bogeymen’, Foreign Policy, no. 106, pp. 176-189.