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Failed States and International Order: Constructing a Post-Westphalian World

What is meant by ‘failed’ states in debates about international order, security and threats to security? Does the concept of failed states, as constructed through academic and policy discourse, undermine the ontological assumptions of international order premised upon bounded, viable, rational states? Are weak or failed states a viable category for analysis in international politics? Can we find characteristics in different countries and regions that would allow us to define and measure degrees of state strength, weakness and state failure in an objective and neutral manner? If weak or failed states are a viable category, what are the implications for international order and security? When is the failed state label used, and with what effect? Do failed states represent a challenge to the Westphalian model of international politics? Does the phenomenon of weak or failed states, as a challenge to this idealized Westphalian normative system of Weberian states, in turn undermine the constitutive order of the international system? Alternatively, is the idea of failed states – and the popularity of focusing on this – a reflection of Western anxieties over ‘new’ security threats since 9/11 and thus a political construction – indeed an example of threat inflation? Does this focus on failed states reflect Western bias over what a modern state should look like? Is the failed state idea therefore about questioning the legitimacy of states which do not conform to Western institutions of statehood, and a pretext for control and intervention? Is it possible to make a distinction between the concept of failed states as represented in discourse, and the reality of failed states – that is, to de-politicize the concept? The concept of failed states has attracted the attention of many analysts, and there are three mains poles of opinion. Some scholars uncritically accept the concept as a paradigm change in international politics with fundamental implications for how we should think about and address insecurity. According to this, ‘weak and failing states have arguably become the single most important problem for international order’. Secondly, other analysts are sceptical of the analytical value of the concept on epistemological grounds, arguing that it is difficult to objectively define, identify and analyse failed states with methodological rigour. Finally, a further argument in the literature rejects the idea of failed states as a politicized, ethnocentric, hegemonic concept with interventionist connotations. After exploring the idea of failed states and responding to some of these debates this paper presents a different argument. In terms of how international order and threats to security are perceived and constructed – which is not necessarily the same as reality – failed states, in conjunction with the apparent decline of traditional