Promoting Stability and Development in Fragile and Failed States

Abstract

There is a growing recognition of the threat to international security posed by failed and fragile states, often marred by serious internal conflict that also has the potential of destabilising neighbouring states and providing ungoverned territory that can provide safe haven for terrorists. The inability of their governments to provide basic services is considered a significant contributory factor. Considerable donor efforts have been mobilised in recent years to help with the post‐conflict reconstruction of states emerging from failure, and to halt the slide of fragile states towards failure, but with mixed effect. The international community needs to focus much more squarely on strengthening the emerging state and increasing its domestic legitimacy, rather than on promoting democracy.

Mapping the Outcomes of Citizen Engagement

“…Rather, they tell us that engagement can make positive differences, even in the least democratic settings. This challenges those who would argue for building states or institutions in these settings first, and leaving the support of citizen engagement until later (see for instance Franc ßois & Sud, 2006).…”

Failures of the state failure debate: Evidence from the Somali territories

“…The state failure discourse has penetrated not only foreign policy and development strategies (François and Sud, 2006), but also gave way to scientific attempts to rank failed or failing states globally. 3 It undoubtedly holds true that contemporary African statehood is 'weaker' when compared to European statehood and when evaluated against the background of an ideal-typical, rational-legal state apparatus as described by Weber (1947Weber ( [1922).…”

State‐Building, Nation‐Building, and Reconstruction

“…Legitimacy rests on a 'belief in a government's right to govern' (Barker 1990, 27), and based on this, acceptance of a given political order, manifested as active compliance with rules which underwrite the reproduction of that order. Students of legitimacy identify different forms of legitimation (Kaldor 2009, 184-8;Holsti 1996, 92-8;François and Sud 2006). These correspond broadly to 'input-oriented' legitimacy, reflecting the sense of cultural and political community, and 'output-oriented' legitimacy, deriving from the capacity to solve problems and provide public goods (Scharpf 1999).…”