Failed State

A failed state is a political body that has disintegrated to a point where basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government no longer function properly. A state can also fail if the government loses its legitimacy even if it is performing its functions properly.

A fragile state has several attributes. Common indicators include a state whose central government is so weak or ineffective that it has little practical control over much of its territory; non-provision of public services; widespread corruption and criminality; refugees and involuntary movement of populations; and sharp economic decline.

The following factors are used by 'Fund For Peace' to ascertain the status of a country:

• Social
• Mounting demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts
• Massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies
• Widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances
• Chronic and sustained human flight
• Economic
• Widespread corruption
• High economic inequality
• Uneven economic development along group lines
• Severe economic decline
• Political
• Delegitimization of the state
• Deterioration of public services
• Suspension or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses
• Security forces operating as a "state within a state" often with impunity
• Rise of factionalized elites
• Intervention of external political agents and foreign states

The proliferation of failing states creates conditions and breeding grounds under which repressive kleptocracies, transnational crime, external incursions, armed extremists and terrorist groups can thrive and expand, resulting in among other things potential costly and perilous quagmires for foreign powers and regional and international organizations that opt to intervene.

The demographic realities of failing states can no longer be dismissed or postponed by political pronouncements, lofty goals or future promises. In addition to developmental issues such as poverty, employment, health, security, governance and political legitimacy, the international community needs to effectively address the faltering global refugee system and the vexing problem of illegal immigration, including smuggling and human trafficking.

Admittedly, some solutions to the seemingly intractable problems of failing states are being pursued. National, regional and international efforts are underway to improve the lot of failing states.

Those efforts encompass national dialogues, encouraging peace, reconciliation and state building, holding fair and peaceful elections, creating national priorities and accountability, monitoring specific developmental objectives and promoting economic resilience. Such initiatives require commitments of substantial resources and long-term support from development partners to address critical issues including security, governance, food, water, health, education, housing, equality, gender, employment and environment.

The fact that no country has yet graduated from being considered a fragile state to a stable one provides little encouragement or optimism that the efforts currently underway will prove sufficient to solve the overwhelming problems of failing states. Clearly, radically new, innovative and comprehensive initiatives are needed in order for countries to transition from a failing to a stable state.

In political philosophy, the right of revolution (or right of rebellion) is the right or duty of the people of a nation to overthrow a government that acts against their common interests and/or threatens the safety of the people without cause.

The right of revolution is not a right that is defined and protected by Constitutions but a natural right. It would be absurd for a constitution to authorize revolutionary challenges to its authority. However, it would not have been absurd for the preamble to the U.S. Constitution to have acknowledged the right of revolution.

The right of revolution in the social contract theories of Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and John Locke (1632–1704), English philosophers, is a curious topic. It is argued that Hobbes and Locke differ most drastically on the notion of who the sovereign is. While Hobbes prefers to establish the sovereign as a demigod, Locke understands the sovereign as a mortal, and thus fallible, man. It is because of this distinction that Hobbes and Locke disagree on the notion of the right of revolution.

In the classical liberal tradition, individuals have rights prior to the institution of government and in which governments are viewed as trustees, agents of the people, the attitude toward revolution is generally more permissive. There is a right to revolt when government violates those natural rights for the protection of which it was created. Locke (1689) apparently goes further on one interpretation, he holds that the people at their own discretion may rightly revoke the trusteeship, that is, dissolve the government, even in the absence of the State’s violation of natural rights or failure to protect them.

The U.S. Declaration of Independence for instance says that the people not only have the right but also have the duty to alter or abolish any government that does not secure their unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

“The revolution you dream of is not ours. You don't want to change the world, you want to blow it up.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Dirty Hands (1948).

The problem is how to distinguish terrorists and freedom fighters in a constitutional and international law concept of the right of revolution!

Christine Adams, a professor of history at St. Mary’s College of Maryland says: As a historian, I know that the reality of revolution is bloody and terrifying. We cannot romanticize it, and Americans have thankfully rejected it for most of our history. But today, I waver between hope that peaceful protest and voter mobilization can still bring change in 2020 and fear that Abraham Lincoln’s confidence that our “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth” is no longer warranted...

Food for thought!