Sunday, February 27, 2011

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conservative ideological or concept "failed state? (III)

is very likely to become failed states of the successful concepts for the U.S., but failed academically, as well as politically damaging to the other countries.

The main difficulty with the notion of "failed state" is its ambiguity. The fact that there is no universally accepted definition of the term is in its descriptive usefulness. Given the profusion of definitions drafted by the academy, it is obvious the problem posed by the fact that those who imposed this label to countries disagree on its content.

Robert Rotberg, the author who has worked most developing an analytical framework of the parameters necessary to take into account when measuring the weakness of the state, mentioned in the indicators that characterize a failed state (which he defines broadly as "a state in anarchy") variables as diverse as civil wars characterized by violence that continues, lack of harmony between communities, loss of control of peripheral regions occupied by groups outside the law, growth criminal violence, institutions defective, damage or destruction of infrastructure, educational systems, informally privatized medical and social, rampant corruption, declining GDP, rising inflation and loss of legitimacy.

Not to mention the methodology used by the Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine to develop an annual "Failed States Index Global, which agglomerates 41 different social indicators, economic political and state failure, grouped in 12 categories, namely: demographic pressures, massive movements of refugees or internally displaced by violence, history of groups offended by injustices recent or past, capital flight chronic and sustained human, economic decline, uneven economic development, criminalization and de-legitimize the state, progressive deterioration of public services, violation of human rights, security apparatus operating as a "state within a state" and institutionalized political exclusion intervention external.

is difficult to understand how a category that includes such diverse indicators can be applied simultaneously to describe countries with problems as diverse as Colombia, Ivory Coast, Iraq, North Korea and Indonesia were included in the list States in the process of failure (failing states ) developed by Rotberg in 2003.

Because the plethora of conceptualizations of the failed state, there remains the discussion of the essential components of state failure and what their indicators should have a higher weight when to measure. For this reason, the agreement by all definitions available today to identify just a "hard core" minimal Weberian concept, consisting of two elements: the loss of territorial control and monopoly of force by the state. One option moreover, in perfect correspondence with international pressure to strengthen the security and defense field, the two priorities of the war against terrorism .

However, this narrow definition focuses on control of territory and the monopoly of violence, raises three problems. The first is that it is impossible to measure: how to know when a State in domestic dispute is controlled through its territory as a whole, or which parts of it? There is no procedure to find out exactly. In Colombia, the Program for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law "as Chair of the Republic makes annual maps which illustrated the "intensity" conflict zones, in terms of number of military attacks carried out each year for subversion. But these maps fail to accurately measure the territorial dimension of the war since the armed actors, especially the guerrillas are in addition to clandestine, mobile enough, almost nomadic, as they change the balance of the conflict. In addition, its offensive do not always coincide with rural territorial settlement and sometimes consist of urban terrorist attacks.

The second problem with this definition is that nothing new learned by the state because it matches the "state of internal war," a category as old as the state itself. An even smaller version was adopted by the " State Failure Task Force Report" in 1998, which identified the failed state scenario with the scenario of "civil war" where the central institutions weakened while its control and authority I did not go beyond the capital. However, both states can fail without internal war that has existed (Albania in 1997), as internal wars occur in countries that have not failed, a situation in which Colombia is a good example.

And the third problem is that the emphasis on state functions of defense and security that fosters this definition, can lead to irrational public policy implementation and long-term problems for the country stigmatized. Indeed, a government agenda focused on security is one of the greatest dangers of failed state concept since, although security is conditio sine qua non legitimacy of sustainable development and external pressures that favor coercive state rule blindly without regard to the particular context, may end up favoring abusive state building, militarized, predators, human rights violators and illegitimate, as happened previously, due to U.S. foreign policy in the Caribbean and Central America, in Nicaragua during the Somoza and Duvalier dictatorships in Haiti and Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.

For this reason, the "rediscovery" of the state that took place during the last decade with the momentum of state weakness and failure as paradigms of interpretation of public action should be placed in the context of the post 9 / 11, ie the War on terrorism, where the primary concern is the inability of weak states to meet the needs of their own citizens but the desire to protect the interests, people and institutions of the richest countries, which want to impose on his first agenda to protect against threats that directly affect them.

During the past eight years, Colombia has become a paradigmatic case of realization in different fields of the danger of a government agenda focused on increased enforcement capacities. A clear example of how a stubborn policy to recover territorial control and security (Security Democratic ), although it meant an outpost in the war against illegal armed groups, also led to excessive spending on defense that resulted in the militarization of the state, the increase in violations human rights by the police ( false positives) and a deterioration of social indicators.

The obsession with results in the defense area converted into electoral banner, certainly in line with the international discourse of failed states and terrorism War, led to Álvaro Uribe to the presidency of Colombia for the period 2002-2006 and allowed him reelected for a second (2006-2010) on the grounds that it needed more time to win the war. The country's economic boom allowed to increase the number of soldiers from 160,000 in 2002 to 254,300 in 2008 (and in general the troop strength of 260,000 troops to 445,000), increasing defense spending gradually to a peak of 5.7 percent of GDP in 2008 according to official figures, and 6.5 percent according to independent estimates, the highest percentage in Latin America, surpassed in the world during the period 1998-2007 just for Israel, Burundi and Turkey.

The evolving debate about failed states suggests the urgent need to question the role played by a concept which first entered the academic agenda, was later exploited by the prevailing international political agenda to indiscriminately impose the same label states faced very different challenges, and finally ended become one more of the confusing parts of the dialectical War on Terror.

The "political myth," understood as "the continuous process of working through a common narrative which members of a social group can provide meaning to their conditions and political experience "( Bottici and Challand , 2006), is always present in the dialogue by which a society builds its perception of" reality "policy . In other words, in fact, not facts speak for themselves.

In an article recent study of fifty through the official documents of the Bush administration in which he analyzes the recurrence displayed some "triggers lexical" Joanne Esch shows the impressive impact that two traditional American political myths (the myth of "American exceptionalism" and "civilization vs. barbarism") are in the argumentative material used to legitimize and normalize the rhetoric of war against terrorism .

is to be investigated, I think that with a predictable outcome, using a similar methodology in both the U.S. and in the peripheral countries that continue to obey their safety recommendations (Colombia among the top the list), if the two stories above are also part of political myths that legitimate the discourse of "failed states." And if they, in turn, form the array of arguments to support tax policies today, typical of the War on Drugs and preventive interventions in the War on Terror , ie in good Castilian, such as war for economic and geopolitical interests of the United States government. E n the "National Security Strategy" released in May 2010 by President Obama, "strengthen weak and failing states" still ranks as one of U.S. priorities to "promote sustainable and equitable international order."

Ultimately, it is likely that failed states are part of the successful concepts for the U.S., but failed academically, as well as politically damaging to the other countries.

Friday, February 18, 2011

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Monday, February 14, 2011

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"failed state or concept? (II)


Before a static ideal type, the state is a global project and therefore a permanent problem in historical construction, similar to democracy and liberal capitalism.

Link to column Week

The historical pendulum of state failure

The weakness and failure of the State nation as a model partnership are not new phenomena. They were not in the beginning, when the national state had to compete with "empires teachers of taxes" and diagrams of "fragmented sovereignty" (city-state and urban federations) to be imposed as a system of human organization prevalent in the world. Nor let to be after the signing in 1648 of the Peace of Westphalia, which is considered the historical cairn that marked the consolidation of the modern state and the beginning of the European interstate system based on the concept of national sovereignty. Both wars ("engine of state formation and transformation," according to Charles Tilly) and invasions, annexations, secessions followed implosions and producing and multiplying the number of states.

In 1914, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires, there were 55 states. In 1919, the end of World War I left a toll of 59. In 1950, increased the number to 69. In 1970, the independence of most of Africa, there were 90 states. With the independence of other territories in Africa, Asia and ocean and the implosion of the Soviet Union in 1991, the number rose to 191. Today, after the independence of East Timor in 2002, there are 192 States.

In 2006, Chomsky published a book ( Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy ) bold enough he argued that America had a number of characteristics of a failed state, including the inability or unwillingness of government to protect its citizens from violence, danger even to promote its foreign policy with its destruction, the tendency to act in disregard of international law, believing themselves free to attack other countries without legitimate justification and delicate democratic deficit resulting from the foregoing that deprived their institutions, formally democratic, real substance. In Latin America, the latest victim of this versatile stigma was Mexico because of the escalation of violence generated by drug trafficking in northern Iraq, a situation for which he traversed the region in Argentina in 2002 due to economic crisis and, as Failed States Index Global , Colombia and the Dominican Republic in 2005 (in the Caribbean region, Haiti is considered a State structurally flawed from this measurement is made).

Europe, the laboratory building, consolidating and then export the rest of the modern state of the world, has not remained oblivious to the vagaries of state weakness. France was a collapsed state during the Vichy regime, unable to guarantee the control of territory from the occupying Nazi Italy in the 1970's, when gangs of Calabria and Sicily filled with drugs, car bombs, kidnappings and death in the streets of Naples and Palermo, Spain, during Franco's government, like any state plunged into a dictatorship, was unsuccessful from the point of view of respect for individual freedoms.

Even today the problems are solved for the first world. A thorough analysis of the current economic situation in Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and, in general, the viability of the medium-term euro as the common currency of the European Union, and perhaps of herself as long-term partnership project most ambitious supranational recorded history, does not yield results very encouraging. A look at U.S. health care system (I recommend to actually see the Michael Moore documentary that came out in 2007, Sicko ) before structural reform driven by Obama, who now want to undo the Republicans, would place on the podium in socially States failures.

Colombia, a country that spent half of the nineteenth century one hundred and sixty years of the twentieth immersed in some kind of war, has certainly experienced many periods of state failure. Paul Oquist documented the "partial collapse" suffered by the Colombian state for the bleeding man and the institutional collapse that was the era of "La Violencia" (1948-1958). The same thing happened during the "double war" waged by the Colombian State in the eighties against narco-terrorism of the Medellín Cartel and fleeting union of all guerrilla groups in the Simon Bolivar Guerrilla Coordinator .

Before settlement, the major problems are history. The State, like any great human project, inbred carries the risk of failure. Hence, Jeffrey Herbst (2004) rightly hold that states "tend to fail." circulation States for the continuing strength-weakness is temporally dynamic. Any State, budding or established, it remains an unrealized program that runs the risk of permanently strengthened or weakened.

The ideal state is not static and unchanging rate, but a global project and therefore a permanent problem in historical construction, similar to democracy and liberal capitalism. Undoubtedly, the situation in Somalia is not the same in Sweden, but both have different strengths and weaknesses: despite having the best human development indicators, the Nordic countries have the highest suicide rate in the world, should we then create the new category of "suicide states"? After WikiLeaks Cablegate unleashed in November, the U.S. is not a state "failed diplomatically"?

Friday, February 4, 2011

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"failed state or concept? (I)



A serious analysis of state weakness indicators should take into account political, economic, social and cultural in a comprehensive way to measure state performance.

In 1993 appears in the American academic, a new concept. This is the notion of "failed state" that, along with other labels such as "underdeveloped" country, "Third World", "pseudo", "narcodemocrático", "totalitarian", "authoritarian", "decertified "" terrorist, "" pariah "," rebel " is added to the list of the worst international stigma may suffer a nation. Even before then, from dissimilar parameters measuring the breakdown of state apparatus, some countries, especially in Africa, had begun to be listed in the scientific community as "quasi-states' (Jackson, 1987), and then as "shadow states" (Reno, 2000), "pre-modern states" (Cooper, 2002), "lawless areas" (Cirino, 2002), "states within a state" (Kingston and Spears, 2004), among others.

After September 11 attacks, the debate became relevant geopolitics. In the National Security Strategy presented by President Bush in September 2002, weak states and in the process of failure was considered a "threat" more for U.S. security than those with claims for expansion. Since then, state failure is no longer a mere academic status to become an indicator that affects the treatment of the States in the international community by governments, multilateral organizations, think tanks, universities and academics, while determines and justifies intervention proposals.

But what is a failed state? The primary function of any state is to provide political goods to its citizens. Real determining the content of the social contract that justifies its existence and whose definition depends on the state concept is adopted. Thus, from the perspective of Weber, the state is defined as one that has the "legitimate monopoly of violence" that is basically an entity that controls a territory and within it ensures security and law enforcement. For its part, a look contractarian the State (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) can assess their degree success of the origins (legitimacy) and the level of social justice (Rawls) it guarantees. To this extent, the economic and social indicators acquired such importance as legal and political. In turn, an international legal state concept (Kelsen, Carré de Malberg, Jellinek, Heller) emphasizes the international recognition of national sovereignty of the state as its essential defining element, so that today countries not recognized by the UN or pseudo-states "(Palestine, Kosovo, Puerto Rico, Republic of Northern Cyprus) would not only be unsuccessful but would have no such character.

Moreover, as the field of knowledge from which to advance the analysis of state weakness will give priority to different types of indicators: an economist would not hesitate to consider the per capita income, inflation, unemployment rate or the rate of human development as critical indicators, while a political scientist privilege to the control of the territory, the application of law, the legitimacy of the institutions or regime stability.

In short, a serious analysis of state weakness should consider and weigh according to context, various parameters (political, economic, social, cultural) to measure the degree of success state, measurement is always cast a historic location on the strength-weakness-aligning, and will depend, of course, the priority to be given to each aspect of state action.

The transition from Colombia through the wall of shame in a precarious state has been dramatic. So far this century has been termed a state "in the process of failure" (Mason, 2000), "weak" (McLean, 2002) and "partially collapsed" (Pizarro 2004). In 2005 the magazine Foreign Policy and Fund for Peace ignited further alarms with the publication of the first Failed States Index Global where Colombia is ranked 14 as a failed state in the same room " critical "breakdown and imminent danger of collapse that countries like Sudan (post 3), Iraq (4), Somalia (5), Haiti (10) and Afghanistan (11).

Since then, the alarm level in that index is published annually has been declining: in 2006 the country appeared in the post 27 (still in danger ) in 2007 at 33 in 2008 to 37 in 2009 to 41, until reaching the last year in box 46, and outside the danger zone (now in the gray zone or borderline ).

Recently, former President Uribe and President Santos, the first in a conference delivered at the University of Oxford on September 20, 2010, and the second one that gave New York two days later, the same formula used to talk about the country: "Colombia: Failed to pop star status. "

So now we are "a rising star." Without doubt, a rising star of unemployment the highest in the subcontinent in 2009 (13%) and 2010 (12.4%), according to Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) ; inequality: a national Gini coefficient of 0.578 Colombia was the most unequal country in Latin America in 2009 and, according to Human Development Report 2010 UN , "loss in human development potential due to the inequality" remains high (28.6%), corruption, since 78 out of 178 in the world and 10 from 18 Latin American context, according to the Transparency International index , those displaced by violence: an unbeatable world record (beating Iraq and Afghanistan) of 3.758 million people displaced by violence, according to the latest figures available from the UNHCR and CODHES, and now also affected by floods and winter: more than two million and a reconstruction of the country making is estimated to cost twelve billion pesos.

Although some advanced state in terms of recovery of territory from the guerrillas (not in terms of security, according to recent rates of urban violence), the supposed "demobilization" paramilitary that took place during the Uribe government has recently been undermined by the emergence of "neoparamilitares" and BACRIM. The safety results have also been seriously tarnished by the deterioration of other social and economic indicators, finally, are the direct costs paid by the country today have invested (wasted "?) An increasing share of GDP on defense reaching a peak of 6 percent in 2008.

All this without mentioning the cost in terms of institutional weakness which represented the last two governments, making Colombia a "Altered State" (Garcia and Revelo, 2010) due to traffic in several regions patronage of the country that had traditionally characterized a front capture of institutions by the mafia and paramilitary structures, today one-third of the elected officials who ruled during the last decade are processed by "para-politics" ( Claudia Lopez, 2010).