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This chapter begins by considering the origins and motivations of contemporary concern with state weakness (or fragility), and the analytical shortcomings of current paradigms. It then provides historical context, summarizing the origins, gradual spread, and evolving functions of the sovereign state, emphasizing that the state is a relatively recent form of political organization, particularly in the postcolonial world, which helps to account for its current difficulties. After reviewing the various definitions and measures of state failure that have guided the debate among scholars and policymakers, the chapter introduces a new approach to measuring state fragility: the Index of State Weakness in the Developing World. This Index permits comparisons of state strength across 141 developing and transitional countries based on their performance in providing four critical sets of goods: physical security, legitimate political institutions, effective economic management, and basic social welfare. A state is weak (or fragile) to the degree that it has deficits in one or all of these dimensions.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, it has become commonplace to assert that weak states are ideal breeding grounds for transnational terrorism. This chapter reviews the evidence for the connection between state fragility and transnational terrorism, focusing on al-Qaeda and its affiliated organizations, which pose the most acute global terrorist threat. It concludes that the links between these two phenomena are more complex and contingent than conventional wisdom would have us believe.

Describes Russia as an incomplete democracy, in which a compromise regarding constitutional engineering was never reached and important decisions regarding power‐sharing were postponed, ultimately leading to the institutionalization of a super‐presidential regime created through brute force. The chapter emphasizes that Russia was the only post‐communist country that experienced a military intervention after democratic elections had taken place. The first part of the chapter focuses on how the process of amending the 1978 Russian Constitution deteriorated into a power struggle between the parliament and the president and describes the institutional structure that resulted from this contentious process. Finally, the chapter demonstrates how the Russian Constitution, which set clear rules for the institutional game but without respect for the division of power principle, has contributed to state weakness. It is emphasized that by concentrating power in the presidency, the executive has become overburdened and the state ineffective.

This chapter explores the link between weak states and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation, examining the threat of WMD proliferation, outlining various avenues by which both state and nonstate actors might attempt to acquire WMD, and exploring ways that state weakness could facilitate each proliferation pathway. It focuses primarily on nuclear weapons, but also discusses chemical and biological weapons. It argues that weak states do have certain vulnerabilities that proliferators might attempt to exploit, including high levels of corruption, poor security, and weak law enforcement capabilities. Two fragile states in particular—North Korea and Pakistan—clearly pose a serious proliferation threat. Globally, however, state fragility does not uniformly correlate with proliferation potential. In fact the most problematic group of countries may be relatively strong “states to watch” that have or seek nuclear weapons capabilities. States in this category—unlike the weakest states—have the resources and capacity to develop WMD, which in some cases could pose a direct threat to the United States. They also are characterized by certain governance gaps that may make them deliberate or inadvertent sources of WMD materials for nonstate actors.

This chapter examines state weakness and international conflict in a fixed-borders world. It discusses the outbreak of a civil war in Lebanon in 1975 and the civil strife and conflict spillover in Congo from 1996 to 2003.

This chapter defines state authority. To exercise state authority is to govern: to make and enforce rules and regulations, and to provide services. Today’s states are expected to regulate, enforce, tax, protect, and provide, and to do so evenly across the full extent of their territories. When the state governs all of its territory, its authority is consolidated. When the state’s authority is limited, contested, or absent altogether in particular parts of its territory, those spaces are undergoverned or ungoverned from the perspective of the state. The chapter then offers an empirical window into the state of state authority in the world, introducing an original measure of state authority. This measure proxies for state authority by estimating the accuracy of age information collected in population censuses. The accurate reporting of age data depends crucially on state authority and state presence; inaccuracies are therefore indicative of state weakness. This measure is used to examine variation in the spatial extent of state authority over territory both within countries and across countries in the developing world. The chapter also illustrates conditions in ungoverned and undergoverned spaces and contrasts the welfare consequences of weak state authority with consolidated state control.

This chapter offers three different tests of implications from this book’s theory. It predicts a relationship between two key conditions—policy incompatibility and the availability of proxy groups—that make subversion likely, and the effects of subversion on state authority. To examine whether the evidence supported that prediction, the chapter draws on an original measure of state weakness that varies subnationally, which was previously introduced in the first chapter. This measure of state weakness is used in three ways. Taken together, these three analyses point to an important finding: rival neighboring states weaken state authority over territory in target countries when proxies are available. These rivals are states with severe policy incompatibilities with the target, and they are especially likely to pursue their policy interests using foreign subversion as an instrument of statecraft. The effect of subversion on state authority is large and important, and the consequences of these state authority deficits are considerable in human welfare terms.

Border fixity has contributed much to international peace and stability in regions such as Europe, North America, and South America. This book discusses the consequences of the border fixity norm for both domestic and international relations. It focuses on territorial pressures and the rise of failed and failing states, arguing that border fixity is a causal factor of these problems. The main objective of this book is to analyze the impact of the border fixity norm on state weakness and how it fosters international conflict.

This chapter offers an alternative view of the incidence and duration of insurgencies in the postcolonial world. Insurgencies and civil wars are seen as the primary symptom of state weakness, the inability of the central government to monopolize violence. Challenging extant explanations that identify poverty and low state capacity as the cause of insurgencies, the chapter shows that colonial insurgencies, also occurring in the context of poverty and state weakness, were shorter and ended in regime victories, while contemporary insurgencies are longer and states are less successful at subduing them. The reason for this is the development of exclusive identities—based on ethnicity, religion, tribe—in the colonial period. These identities serve as bases for mobilization to challenge state power and demand services from the state. Either way, such mobilization means that popular demands for services exceed the willingness to disarm and/or pay taxes, that is, to supply the state.

This chapter analyzes the Soviet origins of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan's state weakness. Building on the parallels with other postimperial contexts, it demonstrates that, while the sources of state weakness in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are specifically Soviet, they have consequences that apply more broadly to other countries confronting dangers of state failure. In these two countries, varying concentrations of resources and different patterns of patronage politics produced divergent trajectories of political development. Through a comparative historical analysis of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan under Soviet rule, the chapter identifies specific features of the development of resources and patronage in both republics—and how these shaped the rent-seeking opportunities of local elites in these republics in the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This chapter reviews modern democracy that spread first to other lands inhabited by Europeans then into further areas as people freed themselves from European colonial rule. It focuses on the global spread of democracy. It also analyzes modern democracy that has been more likely to take root in places where there is a legacy of state weakness and where rulers need their people. The chapter clarifies the broader definition of democracy, which concludes that the initial share of people living under some form of democracy actually started out quite high. It recounts how democracy fell subsequently as a result of colonization, only to rise again as colonies became independent.

This chapter introduces the puzzle motivating the book: most states are weak states, incapable of monopolizing violence and supplying order, and yet the modern centralized state remains the central unit of world politics. Having introduced the puzzle, the chapter previews the core argument. The process of state formation that yielded centralized states in Europe required costly interstate wars and imperial conquest. This process of war driving state formation was not replicable beyond a certain level of destructiveness. After this point, states faced the problem of escalating popular demands for services, and declining willingness to pay taxes and disarm. This gap between what I call “the demand for services” and “the supply of the state” is what we call state weakness, and this gap has deep historical roots. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book.

The persistent weakness of Russia’s state institutions was a major cause of the tumult of the 1990s. Yeltsin and his ministers took important steps to bolster government effectiveness, but the crucial changes were made by Putin. He employed a two-pronged strategy. First, he collected a group of economically liberal technocrats around German Gref, who implemented a wide range of governance reforms, most of which were applauded by investors and economists alike. Second, Putin initiated a crackdown on tax avoidance, the most important victim of which was Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s Yukos oil company. Khodorkovsky threatened Putin politically, but he also undermined Putin’s ability to collect taxes. After Khodorkovsky’s takedown, tax revenue spiked, and Putin followed the Yukos affair with a PR campaign to convince businesses that their investments were safe so long as they paid taxes and stayed out of politics. Most businesses accepted the bargain.

Russia has developed outsized influence in international politics in the twenty-first century, although on paper it does not have the traditional means of power that the United States or China does, for example. Yet, if we look beyond traditional realist measures of power in international relations of human capital, size of the military, and economic means, to also include the relative scope and weight of Russian influence in key policy areas, as well as assessing its geographic domain of influence under Vladimir Putin, Russia is not as weak relative to other great powers as it might at first appear. Under Putin’s autocracy, his regime has also become more willing to project power abroad in order to maintain domestic stability.

This chapter analyses how the land, and social labour reforms of the 1930s were replaced by state and private investment in development programs, most notably in roads, public health, and electrification. Mexicans in 1955 were significantly healthier, better educated and long-lived than their predecessors, despite the enduring failure of taxation. Development brought popularity and patronage, and even while it varied from place to place was central to the stabilization of the early priista regime. It was also inevitably accompanied by corruption, which had case-dependent political impacts. Corruption was economically damaging, but could also stabilise governments. Its exercise could buy present acquiescence from and future leverage over political rivals. When graft or bribes were too egregious or coincident with economic crisis, however, corruption could also be profoundly delegitimizing. All was part of the package of a fundamentally feeble gatekeeper state, whose inability to make demands of its citizens did not weaken it but rather strengthened it.

This chapter explores the extent to which Africa's extraordinary wealth of natural resources has been tied in disastrous ways to global trade. In the years immediately preceding the global financial crisis, many economists advised African countries to reap the benefits of rising prices for primary commodities. The hope was that accruing surpluses could help Africa generate sustainable development. Such prescriptions, however, ignored the negative effects of dependence on resource exports. The ways in which such resources were marketized contributed to state weakness when in fact only strong states could manage them for effective long-term growth. Even the World Bank has recognized that strengthening and reforming resource-rich African states is the key to their development. The chapter calls for industrially diversified growth which offers wider employment and the potential for increasing-returns.

This chapter analyses the history of Guerrero between 1880 and 1945. It demonstrates that frontier-like economic and political structures were warped but not broken by the violence, social reforms and new political classes of the revolution. Old Porfirian landowner and political dynasties instead made alliance with generals and developers to wage petty warfare on land-hungry peasants and unionizing workers. Politicians of all levels were unwilling or unable to follow instructions from Mexico City, whether these dealt with rigging elections, land reforms or literacy campaigns. Across much of the state teachers were scarce and priests powerful. While new lumber and tourist industries took off there were few signs of stabilization or a new social contract in 1945. Guerrero remained instead an archipelago of state power.

This chapter analyzes the history of the state of Veracruz between 1880 and 1945. It charts the social impact of industrialization, the beginnings of oil extraction and the economic take off of the Porfiriato. It explores the notably low impact of the armed revolution on that economy, and the subsequent gains of organized labour and agrarian radicals in the 1920s and 30s in real wages, land, and political representation. Generals gave way to civilians and graduates in government, and a young generation of veracruzanos led by Miguel Alemán began their ascent to power in Mexico City. At the same time, however, in Alemán’s homeland peasant and labour movements fractured, the power of the military and violent landowners grew, corruption flourished, and the economy stalled. By the early 1940s Veracruz was a failed state.