The Security-Politics-Development Nexus: The Lessons of State-Building in Sub-Saharan Africa

Necla Tschirgi

No 2010/35, RSCAS Working Papers from European University Institute

Abstract: How can development policy support weak, dysfunctional or fragile states? What constitutes state fragility and what are the appropriate instruments for state-building? After reviewing two recent quantitative indexes (The Index of State Weakness in the Developing World and The Ibrahim Index of African Governance), this paper cautions against the current tendency to categorise a large number of countries as weak, fragile or failing states. Drawing upon country case studies on Namibia, Somalia and Guinea-Bissau, the paper argues that state-building is fundamentally a political process and external “state-builders” need to develop greater understanding of the internal dynamics of individual societies in order to provide appropriate support to address state fragility. Current strategies for statebuilding are heavily weighted in favour of technical, institutional and formal arrangements. Moreover, since 9/11, the international state-building agenda has increasingly focused on state weakness as a challenge for international peace and security, rather than as an issue of national governance. As a result, many preferred policy prescriptions risk weakening the very states that they hope to strengthen.

Keywords: security development nexus; statebuilding; state formation; state fragility; state failure; weak states; governance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-dev
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