Governance and Political Adaptation in Fragile States

John Idriss Lahai, Karin von Strokirch, Howard Brasted, Helen Ware, John Idriss Lahai, Karin von Strokirch, Howard Brasted, Helen Ware

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9783319907499
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Global Development Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The book examines the various ways that fragile states (or states with limited statehood) in Africa, Asia, the Pacific, and the Americas have adopted, and adapted to, the processes of liberal political governance in their quests to address the problem of political fragility. It presents the stories of resilience in the political adaptation to Western liberal conceptions of governance. In addition to singular or comparative country case studies, this project also examines the interplay of culture, identities, and politics in the creation of people-centric governance reforms. Towards these ends, this volume sheds light on weak states' often constructive engagement in the promotion of state governance with a variety of political conditions, adverse or otherwise; and their ability to remain resilient despite the complex political, sociocultural, and economic challenges affecting them. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the authors aim to counter the noticeable shortcomings in the discursive representations of fragility, and to contribute a more balanced examination of the narratives about and impact of political adaption and governance in people's lives and experiences.

© The Author(s) 2019

John Idriss Lahai, Karin von Strokirch, Howard Brasted and Helen Ware (eds.)Governance and Political Adaptation in Fragile Stateshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90749-9_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

John Idriss Lahai¹ , Karin von Strokirch¹ , Howard Brasted¹ and Helen Ware¹

(1)

University of New England, Northern Tablelands, NSW, Australia

John Idriss Lahai (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Karin von Strokirch

Email: [email protected]

Howard Brasted

Email: [email protected]

Helen Ware

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Until recently, the focus on failed states has mainly been on the shortcomings of these countries, including their resistance to the liberal peace project. Fragility in these countries has taken different forms: economic, socio-cultural, political, and environmental. Modernization theorists, irrespective of their economic and empirical variations, have noted that the transition from primitive to modern has not always worked for countries that have little experience of statehood: that is, a defined territory, collective nationalism, stable and capable central government, specialized institutions, a standing army, and monetized economy (Clapham 2000). As such, the post-Cold War “economic” solutions to the decay and disorderliness of weak, failing, and failed states have stalled because of excessive pressures on fragile states to comply (Rotberg 2003). Without external assistance, the “degree of government,” namely liberal institutions and norms (Randall 2014, 17), and the capacity of people in conditions of fragility to effectively manage their “ungovernable” political and economic spaces are reduced considerably (Brinkerhoff 2007; Besley and Persson 2011; François and Sud 2006). Where attempts have been made to use indigenous (and sometimes, illiberal) models of governance to escape instability and the poverty trap, eurocentric narratives have identified their “incompatible” cultures as significant stumbling blocks to liberal forms of governance (see, e.g., Kaplan 2008; Landell-Mills 1992; Meagher 2012).

Thus, the challenging questions of, firstly, whether the domestication of political liberalism and its associated forms of state governance is possible in fragile states and, secondly, whether failed statehood is a static marker remain central in the study of governance and political adaptation in fragile states. Discourses on the permanency of state failure, which focus on the impossibility of rescuing failed states, are now undergoing a major critical evaluation. The view that the potential to end state failure should not be about whether failed states are bad is also taking root. The world is coming to terms with the fact that state failure is reversible through investment in human security and the recognition of the resilience of the people, governments, and institutions (the collective) in situations of fragility. Contributing authors to this volume have focused on the experiences of the collective in their examination of governance and political adaptation in fragile states. Attempts to define “resilience” through the prism of how the “political” manages both the “regulative” (to control individual or group action) and the “distributive” (to reduce relative deprivation) in the process of ending fragility are problematic. Actors’ preferences (including those of the state) on the questions of what should be prioritized differ in situations of fragility. Sometimes, the dilemma is not knowing whether a focus on building state structures will result in the reification of imagined communities into communities of peace, security, and development (Chris C. Bosley, this volume). Moreover, there is always the danger that in the transition from failed to successful states, modernization would trump the indigenous models of governance. This dilemma and accompanying threat reveal the unresolved internal contradictions of the liberal peace agenda. What this foreshadows is the risk of losing “local ownership” and marginalizing the inputs of local actors. According to some sceptics, faced with failed states, external interventions that insist on a liberal peace project have created a permanent state of crisis in these states because of the “paradox of combining reconstruction with [covert and overt] coercion” (Newman and Richmond 2009, 4).

But as Nicolas Lemay-Hébert (Chap. 3, this volume) observes, concern over fragility should be more about resilience and less about the business of “ranking states’ performance” to legitimize the “privileged few’s willingness to regulate [fragile] societies.” It should also not be about the projection of the “otherness” of collapsed and weak states. Instead, the resilience of fragile states should be about recognizing the “limits of traditional governance and capacity-building,” on the one hand, and embracing “new opportunities for governance of wartorn states,” on the other (Lemay-Hébert, Chap. 3, this volume). Towards these ends, countries with limited statehood are gradually adapting to neoliberal forms of governance, and where possible infusing them with indigenous approaches, to address the endemic problem of state fragility. Despite internal resistance to postcolonial reinventions of political culture and socialization processes, many countries in the Caribbean, the Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America are striving to institutionalize democratic reforms. They are making efforts to promote democratic political participation, improve justice systems, adopt stringent anti-graft laws, support gender-responsive ways of empowering grassroots organizations and civil society, and institute peer-to-peer governance mechanisms to promote transparency and accountability.

Theoretical and Practical Contributions

This collection of chapters aims to tell the story of the current orthodoxy on resilience and to uncover the international and national agenda for the reversal of fragility in states with limited statehood. The theoretical foundation of this volume is the concept of “political adaptation.” Through a multidisciplinary approach, this volume aims to counter the noticeable shortcomings in discursive representations of fragility and to contribute a more balanced examination of the narratives and impact of political adaption and governance in people’s lives and experiences. Contributors theorize and historicize the notion of fragile, situating it within contemporary global and local political, economic, and socio-cultural contexts. Chapters examine the progress and challenges facing fragile states. Some of the challenges discussed in this book are not unique to failed states. For instance, the inclusion of Chris C. Bosley’s chapter, titled: Reifying Imagined Communities: The Triumph of the Fragile Nation-State and the Peril of Modernization, is deliberate. His provocative insights on the perils of political modernization (liberalism) and the triumph of the modern state demonstrate that the uncertainties characterizing political transitions in contemporary fragile states are political conditions that all countries—whether developed, developing, and least developed—had to go through.

Against the background context, including a critique of external factors that gave rise to political and economic fragility , this volume explores diverse approaches to political adaptation. A key question that guides this volume is the ways that fragile states adapt to new institutional mechanisms to reverse political fragility and bad governance. There is a concomitant need to identify determinants of political fragility and their impact on endogenous governance alternatives in fragile states. How the global forces of political liberalism influence national governance responses to political transparency, accountability, and representative democracy is crucial. Another line of enquiry is the manner in which local cultural socialization and belief systems promote commitment or resistance to international liberal principles on good governance. This in turn raises the question of whether institutional political reforms promote the conditions for sustained (re-)designs of approaches to governance. Fragile states face particular challenges and opportunities in the sphere of institutional design and reforms to address fragility so these need to be discerned. Authors of this volume are concerned with the stigma associated with the branding of countries as fragile and their people as both vulnerable and culturally resistant to the Western ideals of governance. It is important to identify the contributions of local models of governance in creating political resilience in fragile states, how these contributions can be strengthened, and the lessons to be learnt for future research and practice.

Brief Outline of the Book

Part I of this volume examines the histories and theories of fragile states and transitions from fragility to resilience. In the introductory chapter by Lahai and Lahai, “Failed States: History, Representations, and Controversies,” they outline the theoretical foundations of the origins of fragile states. They postulate and discuss two central hypotheses (i.e., the Hamitic and an alternate hypothesis) on the contested historical origins of fragile states. The Hamitic hypothesis asserts that, with few exceptions, and depending on the kind of European imperialism they experienced between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, all fragile states are states that did not have significant experiences of statehood during the precolonial or medieval epochs (Clapham 2000, 2). In the second hypothesis, which Lahai and Lahai call the “alternate hypothesis,” they fused dependency theory and critical postcolonial studies, to critique the Hamitic hypothesis, and suggest that “colonial experiences created the conditions of fragility in postcolonial states.” Proceeding from there, they outline current forms of, and controversies associated with, representations of fragile states in the theories and policy directives of two groups of scholars. The mainstream Western scholars, whose prescriptive narratives favour the neoliberal re-ordering of failed states, and the subaltern scholars, whose subjective, understanding of fragility is connected to their lived experiences and primordial connections to the fragile states in question. Lahai and Lahai identify why the subalterns, who endeavour to represent the people living in fragile states, are demanding the “right” to speak for themselves, and in a similar vein, have objected to the hegemonic knowledge of Western neoliberal scholars about the nature of vulnerable peoples and countries in the global South. This chapter offers readers an understanding of the current state of thinking on fragile states, which other contributing authors build upon in their respective case studies.

In Chap. 2, Chris C. Bosley argues that the development of “specialized” institutions to address fragility in developed countries did not happen as a result...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction
• Part I. The History and Theories of State Fragility: From Fragility to Resilience
• Part II. Politics of Survival: Instability and the Possibilities of the Neoliberal Governance Framework
• Part III. The Politics of Electoral Adaptation
• Part IV. Reconstructions of the Pacific Islands Countries
• Back Matter