engaging fragile states - Woodrow Wilson International Center for ...

cannot either institute a strong autocracy or consolidate democracy. It thus gets
locked into a basically dysfunctional situation. As Goldstone observed, “Quite
frequently, democratic governments are themselves the source of state fragility
when they are ineffective because of paralysis, deadlock or corruption among the
democratic parties or leaders. States from Weimar Germany to Nepal have seen
democracy lead to worse things because the democratic government is unable to
carry out its required functions.”
If a state does not learn how to respond to changes in its environment, its lack
of resiliency paves the way for a sudden and drastic negative turn of events. As
Marshall described, “A cycle of deterioration can result, whereby a state’s conflicts
feed back into further fragility, and they in turn are fed by fragility, in an interlocking
spiral. Fragile states often remain fragile—they cannot manage change
properly. Mismanagement of the situation causes further deterioration…So state
fragility, political instability, and state failure can lead to one another and feed
back into one another.” Carment corroborated the notion of a cumulative, cascading
process. “Tracked over time, many countries’ scores on authority, legitimacy,
and capacity decline more or less in tandem. Except for a handful cases like Sri
Lanka, when one element of fragility weakens, others do, too.”
Total collapse most often occurs with the outbreak of violent conflict, for "that
tends to tear everything else down,” Marshall remarked. Similarly, Carment finds
that total failure occurs most frequently where there are challenges to authority and
capacity structures, such as in Sudan and Iraq. Interestingly, the scenarios leading
to ultimate collapse can emerge in varied contexts. According to Goldstone, five
main pathways lead to ultimate failure:
1 Ethnic conflicts reach the extreme point of genocide, where specific groups
are targeted, such as in Rwanda;
2 Crony or predatory states witness their leaders becoming solely interested
in obtaining economic wealth and security for themselves, such as in the
former Zaire;
3 Ongoing guerrilla rebellions or acts of terrorism disrupt overall order, such as
in Chechnya;
4 Democracies become ineffective due to paralysis, deadlock or corruption
among political parties, such as occurred in Nepal; and
5 Succession crises arise, where struggles for power among contending leaders
produce social instability, such as in Guinea.
Understanding State Failure and Resilience: A Global Scan | 21