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.
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