ARE ALL STATES FAILING STATES?
plain incompetent as the most infamous underperformers on our annual list. Indeed, the very fact that these leadership failures are going on in more privileged environments suggests a greater degree of failure. What’s more, such failed governments can produce sweeping global market consequences because they are more connected to those markets.
So failures of small, local governments have big, global consequences. 2. The Foiled States Index It would be useful to see a Failed States index that directed blame where it was due.
And sometimes, the blame rests with the other guy. The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has spilled over its borders and brought mayhem, refugees and tragedy to its neighbours. Is this really Rwanda’s fault? The conflict in Syria is doing the same thing, with tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.
The list goes on: Mexico puts the squeeze on drug gangs and Guatemala feels the pain.
Sometimes the cross-border contagion is self-reinforcing, as in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Interdependence has its downsides.
3. The Flailing States Index
If you measure the failings of governments by whether they make the most of what they have, the current index might look different.
How much more successful would the US be if its Congress were not dysfunctional and its political system not so corrupted by money?
How much better off would Europe be if Germany hadn’t imposed its false gospel of austerity on the rest of the continent?
What if Japan had a real stable leadership for a change?
To say nothing of how the Angolas, Equatorial Guineas, Russias and Saudi Arabias of the world – petrostates whose underground wealth masks - domestic failures – would measure up if their built-in advantages were taken into account.
4. The Failed Statesmen Index
Blaming governments is one thing, but sometimes it’s fairer to blame problems on the misguided policies, greed, corruption or evil of a single individual or a small coterie of leaders.
This means the solution to state failure in some places might really lie in an actuarial table, the end of a blood line or a violent act of rebellion (Zimbabwe, North Korea, Syria and Sudan come to mind).
And you don’t have to be a crazy dictator to impose devas- tatingly damaging policies. You can be a narcissistic demagogue like Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez or a democratically selected but utterly misguided mainstream politician like Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. Whatever the model, just look at the devastating costs from these individual failures – there’s blame enough to go around.
5. The Failing-Their-OwnPeople Index
Make an index based on the primary metric of countries failing to meet the terms of the social contract, and it will be so long the countries on it won’t just be poor or victimised by conflict, bad neighbours, bad luck or bad leadership.
Why? Just about every state in the world is falling behind in its ability to serve its citizens these days – because too many of their problems can only be resolved on a global stage and unfortunately the old-fashioned nation-states upon which our global system is built lack the basic instruments of governance necessary to influence outcomes as they once did.
Indeed, most states today are less able to control their own borders and their own currencies, project force or enforce laws – and are much more dependent on highly mobile, global corporate actors who unhesitatingly play one country against another.
The reality is that in some ways all states are faltering, falling behind what they once were and what their citizens expect of them. – Washington Post-Bloomberg
Rothkopf is chief executive and editor-at-large of Foreign Policy magazine.