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Fragile States Relié – 16 décembre 2011
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Today a billion people, including about 340 million of the world's extreme poor, are estimated to live in 'fragile states'. This group of low-income countries are often trapped in cycles of conflict and poverty, which make them acutely vulnerable to a range of shocks and crises.
This engaging book defines and clarifies what we mean by fragile states, examining their characteristics in relation to "weak" and "failed" states in the global system, and explaining their development from pre-colonial times to the present day. It explores the connections between fragile statehood and violent conflict, and analyses the limitations of outside intervention from international society. The complexities surrounding 'successes' such as Costa Rica and Botswana - countries which ought to be fragile, but which are not - are analysed alongside the more precarious cases of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Haiti.
Absorbing and authoritative, Fragile States will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of international relations, security studies and development.
- Nombre de pages de l'édition imprimée200 pages
- LangueAnglais
- ÉditeurPolity Press
- Date de publication16 décembre 2011
- Dimensions15.49 x 2.11 x 21.84 cm
- ISBN-109780745649412
- ISBN-13978-0745649412
Description du produit
Revue de presse
Choice
"A very important book, tightly argued and brilliantly written,two qualities rarely found in a work by four authors ofseveral nationalities. It is committed neither to anideological orthodoxy, whether neo–liberal or neo–Marxist,norpurely descriptive or historical. It is both theoretical andempirical, both firm and nuanced. This small book is worth awhole library of studies on nation–building, fragile states andforeign interventions."
Survival
"An invaluable analysis which, in addition to imparting a deepinsight into the complex nature of fragile states, gives a coherenthistorical framework which defines political trends intoday s era."
LSE Politics Blog
"A very readable and practically oriented approach to understandingthe issue of state fragility."
Ethnopolitics
"A valuable contribution to the literature, analysing conflict anddevelopment in the modern era. The comprehensive historicalinformation for each case study is of particular note, ensuring aclear and reasoned discussion of highly complex issues."
Australian Journal of International Affairs
"The authors offer a concise and robust introduction to fragilitywithout falling into the trap of oversimplification."
Nationalities Papers
"An empirical triumph with policy relevance – truly unique in ourfield."
George A. Lopez, University of Notre Dame
"Largely based on the analyses of selected country studies,this important investigation into the roots of state fragilitybrings out results which question the need for further developmentassistance and instead find arguments for changes in, for instance,farm policies of rich countries. Particularly noteworthy in thisbook is the inclusion of cases that have avoided the statefragility that has afflicted neighboring countries. This givesfurther food for thought on how insightful governance can escapethe dilemmas of state fragility."
Peter Wallensteen, Uppsala University
Biographie de l'auteur
Hans–Henrik Holm is professor and head of department atthe Danish School of Media and Journalism.
Georg Sørensen is professor of political science atAarhus University.
Michael Stohl is professor of communication and politicalscience at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Détails sur le produit
- ASIN : 0745649416
- Éditeur : Polity Press (16 décembre 2011)
- Langue : Anglais
- Relié : 200 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780745649412
- ISBN-13 : 978-0745649412
- Poids de l'article : 390 g
- Dimensions : 15.49 x 2.11 x 21.84 cm
- Commentaires client :
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Students and working professionals in international relations will be in their element with Fragile States, sub-titled War and Conflict in the Modern World. But fortunately for the rest us - intellectually curious but relatively uninformed laymen - this book is also for us. Beautifully written and immediately accessible, Fragile States is a gift; a breath of fresh air in the otherwise, too often sluggish atmosphere of conventional academic writing.
The book's four authors are international: Lothar Brock is from Germany; Georg Sørensen and Hans-Henrik Holm are from Denmark; and Michael Stohl is from the USA; all veterans of international relations and peace research. They bring a cool methodology, restraint and a lifetime of experience to their endeavor.
Would you like to (really) understand state sovereignty? And why in IR theory, it's a sacred cow, yet hasn't always been? Would you like to grapple with hegemony and learn why it's unavoidable and as old as human history?
Would you like to understand the role of self-seeking elites and how they exploit the state for power and personal profit? Would you like to understand why some nations are poor and will probably always be, no matter how much foreign aid they receive?
Would you like to get closer to the facts about most modern wars and how they are inside sovereign states, not between them?
And for die-hard humanitarians who want intervention and campaigns against injustice, Fragile States will explain why, in spite of the "responsibility to protect" principle, outside involvement is dangerous and often fails to work.
Fragile states are not the same as failed states.
A fragile state is one that is vulnerable and susceptible to crisis. Rule is based on selective coercion rather than legitimacy and the rule of law and there are no effective procedures for holding leaders accountable to their citizens. A fragile state is violence prone. The authors use three countries as case studies: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Afghanistan and Haiti.
A failed state is one in collapse; a nation that can no longer perform its duties to its citizens or produce the conditions for its own existence. Somalia is the best example. Other candidates could arguably be Iraq and Syria.
This book, Fragile States is both theoretical and empirical, interlacing its assertions with history. One reviewer said it "is worth a whole library of studies on nation-building, fragile states and foreign interventions."
Chapter 1 describes the major characteristics of fragile states: seriously critical deficiencies in centralized authority, national economy and community.
Chapter 2 describes the formation of these nations and how there is no "one size fits all" model for fragile development. The significant variables include colonial history, e.g., Democratic Republic of the Congo; geographical location (read that as "strategic" importance), e.g., Afghanistan; and a lack of centralized authority to control competitive groups, e.g., Haiti.
Chapter 3 describes fragile statehood and its relationship to violent conflict. Chapter 4 describes how the rest of the international community copes with these weak cousins. Chapter 5 describes Costa Rica and Botswana and how they escaped the fragile state predicament. The Conclusion discusses international "framework conditions" that must be changed before intervention can be effective.
The book is dense, like a Christmas fruitcake. Thankfully, there are many internal summaries, exceedingly helpful at the expense of being repetitive. Readers will resonate to different things and everybody will have their own takeaway points. Here is a list of mine.
* State sovereignty, as we understand it today, is relatively new. The global system of sovereign states developed as a result of decolonization after WW II. Sovereignty, however, is a double-edged sword. Fragile states continue to survive because the international community accepts their claims to sovereignty.
* Corruption is a major aspect of fragility. States may be dominated by social forces and political groups that hide behind their sovereignty and use the rhetoric of democracy to give legitimacy to their exploitation of the state as a source of private enrichment. As the authors say: these elites have "captured" the state apparatus to their own advantage and treated it as personal property. While internationally recognized sovereignty is a powerful source of power and influence for the ruling elites, for the rank and file citizen, this same "sovereignty" is, ironically, a source of insecurity.
* The role of outsiders often makes bad situations worse because there are strong limits to what outsiders can do in fragile states. Intervention may seem to be the only way forward, and yet interventions most often enhance fragility. Why? Because they prevent normal political developments, the ones necessary to build the very institutions necessary to avoid fragility. The authors say this is the international society's dilemma of "damned if you do" and "damned if you don't."
* The authors believe there is a measured degree of hope if the international community changes its response pattern. First, a examination of what they call international framework conditions, including a critical look at two economic issues: (1) the need to raise net farmer income (2) the need to stop applying neoliberal principles to poor countries, which - as the authors say - amounts to "kicking away the ladder" for struggling economies. "In sum," they say, "both in industry and in agriculture, rich countries maintain international framework conditions in fragile countries that impede economic growth." This has to change.
Secondly, both the legal and illicit trade in arms must change too. Military assistance by donor countries is substantial and many of these weapons are often used by ruling elites to stay in power. The illicit trade in small-arms (e.g., AK-47s) means that weapons end up in the hands of poorly trained soldiers who kill and threaten. The international community needs to find more effective ways to seize illegal weapons and to take them out of circulation. The authors also hope the newly achieved UN Arms Trade Treaty will make a difference. Let us hope that America will ratify it in spite of NRA opposition.
It was said earlier that Fragile States is the type of book to be chewed, digested and reflected upon. When chewing and digestion are over, it's time for reflection. Again, this is personal. So here are two thoughts that haunt me and dominate my thinking:
The first is about Africa and the 19th century colonialization of the Sub-Saharan continent when seven European nations gathered in Berlin (1884-85) to glibly curve it up for their own benefit. According to Adam Hochchild, author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa (1998), tens of millions of Africans died as a result of colonialism. Now I have a new understanding of its consequences and how it contributed to both fragile and failed states.
Foreign aid has tried to compensate for guilt and mismanagement but, as the authors say, Africa has received over $1 trillion in aid over the last sixty years and much of it - though not all of it - has contributed to fragility.
Secondly, I think about the recent wars conducted by the West to establish democratic societies and how little they've achieved.
The Fragile States Index (Fund for Peace) shows Afghanistan steadily increasing in fragility on most dimensions. The country has risen from the eleventh most vulnerable nation in 2005 to the seventh in 2013.
And what will historians say about the war in Iraq? Was it one of the interventions that went incredibly wrong?
The weight of these thoughts are heavy. How do we cope with the realization that over a half a million soldiers and citizens died in vain; that so many soldiers returned home so traumatized that suicide became the only way to find peace; that after spending trillions of dollars, Iraq ended up as a failed state? Is Iraq like in Humpty Dumpty? Absolutely nothing can mend it?
The authors of Fragile States do not say any of this, of course. Like all good teachers, they want us to arrive at our own conclusions.
And then start a debate.