Precipitating state failure: do civil wars and violent non-state actors create failed states?

Abstract

This article examines whether the incidence of civil wars and the presence of violent non-state actors have an effect on state failure. Research on failed states has thus far prioritised armed conflicts as one of the key causes of state failure. This study challenges that claim and posits that civil war incidence has limited impact on the transition from fragility to failure. Global quantitative analysis of state failure processes from 1995 to 2014 shows that although armed conflicts are widespread in failed states, civil violence does not lead to state failure and large numbers of failed states become engulfed by civil war only after the failure occurs. By contrast, this study demonstrates a direct link between the presence of violent non-state actors and state failure.

Keywords:

• Failed state
• state fragility
• civil war
• armed conflict

Notes

1. According to the Center for Systemic Peace, Nigeria was listed as a high-fragility (failed state) case since the early 1990s and before the start of the Niger Delta conflict. It has left the ‘failed states club’ following the election of the Olusegun Obasanjo government in 1999 and – despite raging civil violence in the Niger Delta, and more recent Boko Haram insurgency – has not re-entered the category of fragile or failing states.

2. Tilly, “War Making and State Making.”

3. Coyne, “Reconstructing Weak and Failed States”; Helman and Ratner, “Saving Failed States.”

4. Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States.

5. Rotberg, When States Fail; Malejacq, “Warlords, Intervention, and State Consolidation.”

6. Malejacq, “Warlords, Intervention, and State Consolidation.”

7. Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe, “States, the Security Sector,” 252.

8. Gros, “Taxonomy of Failed States.”

9. Iqbal and Starr, “Bad Neighbours,” 317.

10. Vinci, “Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups,” 298.

11. Call, “Beyond the 'Failed State'.”

12. Rotberg, When States Fail.

13. Rotberg, When States Fail, 2–14.

14. Kraxberger, “Failed States.”

15. Rotberg, When States Fail, 11.

16. Bilgin and Morton, “From ‘Rogue’ to ‘Failed’ States.”

17. Rotberg, When States Fail.

18. Nay, “Fragile and Failed States.”

19. Vinci, “Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups.”

20. Rotberg, State Failure, 5.

21. Iqbal and Starr, “Bad Neighbours,” 318.

22. DeRouen et al., “Civil War Peace Agreement.”

23. Newman, “Failed States and International Order.”

24. Kasfir, “Domestic Anarchy.”

25. Hendrix, “Measuring State Capacity”; Thies, “Rulers, Rebels, and Revenue.”

26. Call “Beyond the ‘Failed State’.”

27. Vinci, “Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups,” 296.

28. Kasfir, “Domestic Anarchy.”

29. Rotberg, When States Fail.

30. Rotberg, When States Fail, 15.

31. Hill, “Beyond the Other?”

32. Piazza, “Incubators of Terror”; Hehir, “Myth of the Failed State”; Simons and Tucker, “Misleading Problem of Failed States.”

33. See Coggins, “Does State Failure Cause Terrorism?”; Piazza, “Incubators of Terror.”

34. Newman, “Weak States.”

35. Marten, “Warlordism in Comparative Perspective.”

36. Marten, “Warlordism in Comparative Perspective.”

37. Malejacq, “Warlords, Intervention, and State Consolidation.”

38. Klare, “Deadly Connection,” 116.

39. Klare, “Deadly Connection,” 116.

40. Carey, Colaresi, and Mitchell, “Governments, Informal Links to Militias.”

41. Ahram, Proxy Warriors; Mazzei, Death Squads.

42. Klare, “Deadly Connection.”

43. Vinci, “Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups,” 296.

44. Waltz, Theory of International Politics.

45. Josselin and Wallace, Non-state Actors in World Politics, 3.

46. Vinci, “Anarchy, Failed States, and Armed Groups,” 299.

47. Bures, “Private Military Companies.”

48. Rotberg, When States Fail, 3–14.

49. Ghani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States.

50. See Uppsala Conflict Database Program at http://ucpd.uu.se.

51. Malejacq, “Warlords, Intervention, and State Consolidation.”

52. Carey, Colaresi, and Mitchell, “Governments, Informal Links to Militias.”

53. Rotberg, When States Fail.

54. Vandewalle, “After Qaddafi.”

55. Kalyvas, Logic of Violence in Civil War.

56. Kilcullen, Accidental Guerrilla.

57. Shirk and Wallman, “Understanding Mexico’s Drug Violence.”

58. Newman, “Failed States and International Order.”

59. The definition of pro-government militias (PGMs) is borrowed from Carey et al., who classify as a PGM any group that: (1) is pro-government, or sponsored by the state; (2) exists outside regular security forces; (3) is armed; and (4) is organised. See Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe, “States, the Security Sector,” 250.

60. Aliyev, “Strong Militias, Weak States”; Ahram, Proxy Warriors; Souleimanov, Aliyev, and Ratelle, “Defected and Loyal?”; Nussio, “How Ex-combatants Talk.”

61. Mitchell, Carey, and Butler, “Impact of Pro-government Militias.”

62. Ahram, “Pro-government Militias.”

63. Cohen and Nordås, “Do States Delegate Shameful Violence.”

64. Stanton, “Regulating Militias.”

65. Souleimanov and Aliyev, “Evaluating the Efficacy of Indigenous Forces.”

66. Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe, “States, the Security Sector.”

67. Mazzei, Death Squads, 12–14.

68. Kalyvas, “Armed Collaboration in Greece.”

69. Iqbal and Starr, “Bad Neighbours,” 316.

70. See details on the SFI coding and methodology at http://www.systemicpeace.org/.

71. UCDP, “Battle-related Deaths Dataset,” 4.

72. The SFI codes ‘armed conflict’ as ‘Total Residual War’, presented as a measure of ‘general security and vulnerability to political violence.’ Hence, coding does not take into consideration the presence of armed groups.

73. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”

74. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,” 83–4.

75. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”

76. Sundberg, Eck, and Kreutz, “Introducing the UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset.”

77. The NSCD defines non-state groups as ‘any non-governmental group of people having announced a name for their group and using armed force against another similarly formally organized group’. See Sundberg, Eck, and Kreutz, “Introducing the UCDP Non-State Conflict Dataset,” 2.

78. Carey, Mitchell, and Lowe, “States, the Security Sector.”

79. Rotberg, When States Fail; Kraxberger, “Failed States.”

80. Clapham, “Global–Local Politics,” 87.

81. Clapham, “Global–Local Politics,” 89.

82. Ross, “Oil and Gas Data.”

83. Buhaug, Gates, and Lujala, “Geography,Rebel Capability.”

84. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”

85. Fearon and Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War.”

86. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations.