CIAO DATE: 05/05

Making States Work: From State Failure to State-Building

Executive Summary

• It is frequently assumed that the collapse of state structures, whether through defeat by an external power or as a result of internal chaos, leads to a vacuum of political power. This is rarely the case. The mechanisms through which political power are exercised may be less formalized or consistent, but basic questions of how best to ensure the physical and economic security of oneself and one's dependants do not simply disappear when the institutions of the state break down. Non-state actors in such situations may exercise varying degrees of political power over local populations, at times providing basic social services from education to medical care. Even where non-state actors exist as parasites on local populations, political life goes on.

• How to engage in such an environment is a particular problem for policy-makers in intergovernmental organizations and donor governments. But it poses far greater difficulties for the embattled state institutions and the populations of such territories.

• A basic question confronting outside actors is whether to engage in top-down or bottom-up policies: to strengthen institutions and leaders, or foster a functioning civil society in the hope that this will cultivate enlightened leadership in the long term. The sobering assessment that emerges from this project is that state-building works best when a population rallies behind an enlightened leader, but very little at all will work if they rally behind one who is not.

• The importance of "ownership" is frequently asserted by international actors in both the political and economic processes of transition, though its meaning is unclear. It is noteworthy that those states included in this project as relative successes — Mozambique, Costa Rica, and Singapore — all enjoyed strong leadership on the part of local elites. Each demonstrates the importance of foreign assistance being tailored to local needs, where possible channelled through local hands.

• Such caveats concerning ownership should not be misunderstood as an argument against widespread participation. As Afghanistan shows, social bonds may in some cases be far stronger than institutional ties to the state. The most optimistic aspect of Afghanistan's recent past is that its endemically weak state coincides with a relatively robust society. Tapping into its ethnic, tribal, sectarian, and linguistic networks is an important element of building a stable state.

• An important additional local dynamic that is frequently overlooked in analyses of state failure is how a state's governance problems relate to its regional context. Conflicts — and the economic incentives that foster them — may spill across borders and in some cases international efforts to bring peace may only displace conflict into another area. Differing regional dynamics may impact on the evolution of conflict, the nature of state institutions in a region, and the relative interest of external actors to support them. In severely depressed economies, the return of well-educated and motivated exiles may help overcome gaps in the civil service with greater legitimacy than importing large numbers of foreign personnel. That legitimacy is not unlimited, however, and the emergence of the diaspora as a new political elite may itself give rise to new political tensions.

• The UN Charter is no longer a barrier to international engagement in states with weak institutions. In the past decade, the Security Council has authorized military interventions in states unable to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe (Somalia), following the deposition of the elected head of government (Haiti), and in the wake of economic collapse and social disorder (Albania).

• The transformed strategic environment after the 11 September 2001 attacks encouraged some to think that countries led by the United States would be more willing to take on human rights violators if a regime also posed a threat to Western interests. It would be naïve to expect international efforts to be driven by unvarnished altruism, but there is now some evidence that pursuit of foreign policy objectives in isolation from coherent state-building strategies is at best a waste of resources. International action in response to a crisis commonly suffers from happening too late and too quickly. On the timing, early warning is not generally a problem of lack of information. The problem is inadequate analysis and a lack of political will. The need for new "early warning systems" is far outweighed by the need to use the information already being gathered. On the duration of international action, a central problem is that a crisis tends to be focused in time, while the most important work of building up state institutions takes years or decades. Effective statebuilding is slow and it is disingenuous to suggest otherwise to domestic publics.

• First responders to a crisis in a state's capacity to care for vulnerable populations are usually humanitarian relief workers. But the international humanitarian system was designed with an eye to responding to the horrors of inter-state conflict. The new environment in which humanitarians find themselves requires them to interact with a far wider array of actors — and to make decisions about which of those actors can be helpful and which will hinder efforts to restore stability. This "humanitarian intelligence" requires both a change in tactics, but also a doctrinal shift in thinking about the role of humanitarians.

• If humanitarian assistance is coming to be seen as political in nature, development assistance has long been regarded as such. Reconstruction aid, in particular, is one of the carrots that may be held out in the course of peace negotiations, with the promise of a pledging conference to come afterwards. But are such economic levers the most appropriate instruments for driving a state towards success, rather than simply enticing it away from the abyss? And how should success be measured? Providing assistance in isolation from political strategies runs the risk of extending conflict or reinforcing structural violence that encourages conflict to return.

• There are not many coercive tools available to international actors to deal with state failure. If a situation goes beyond the point where words are sufficient, sanctions may be imposed or force may be used (with or without the blessing of the UN Security Council). Two recent additions to this very limited quiver are international criminal law and transitional administration. For international actors to assume the power to make such decisions is antithetical to many of the lessons discussed here, in particular the need for local input and ownership. But if ownership is not possible in the short term — due to the inability of local actors to work peacefully together or where institutions simply do not exist — it is better to acknowledge that ownership will be the end rather than the means.

• States cannot be made to work from the outside. International assistance may be necessary but it is never sufficient to establish institutions that are legitimate and sustainable. This is not an excuse for inaction, if only to minimize the humanitarian consequences of a state's incapacity to care for its vulnerable population. Beyond that, however, international action should be seen first and foremost as facilitating local processes, providing resources and creating the space for local actors to start a conversation that will define and consolidate their polity by mediating their vision of a good life into responsive, robust, and resilient institutions.

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