Brownbag Lunch: Building State Capacity in Fragile and Failed States—Issues and Challenges

Events of Globalization Week Spring 2006

Date: Thursday, March 30, 2006
Time: 1:30-3:00 PM
Location: Marvin Center Room 403, 800 21st Street, NW

Speaker

Inder Sud, Adjunct Professor of International Affairs, The George Washington University

Overview

At the brownbag lunch discussion, Professor Inder Sud presented his findings on Building State Capacity in Fragile and Failed States: Issues and Challenges. Professor Sud began by addressing the division surrounding the issue of aid. Liberals believe aid is needed, but conservatives argue that aid is being channeled to prop up bad governments. Nevertheless, the biggest boost in foreign aid occurred under the current administration for the purpose of national security. Overall, the United States has a stronger consensus that aid is needed but no consensus on how to go about administering it.

Fragile and failed states have become a topic of great concern for US national security. States fail when government function collapses and there is a loss of control over a significant part of the territory, or ungoverned space. Failed states can range from having no nominal control to a complete loss of governance. And because of weakened governance capacity, failed states become havens for terrorists.

By looking at the causes of state failure over a 30 year period, Professor Sud found that failed states exhibit four conditions. These conditions are: (1) an inability to meet the living standards of the citizen, including the deterioration of internal conditions, (2) a lack of integration into the global economy and the absence of openness to trade, (3) a prolonged conflict in a neighboring country, and (4) a lack of a stable government, but not necessarily a lack of a democratic government. Professor Sud found that an autocratic government can succeed as long as its underlying concern is “what does it mean for the people?“

Because failed states lack both capacity and services, the international community has approached reconstruction by moving in with lots of money, trying to quickly restore services, and using civil society to push a broad array of reforms. There is euphoria at the beginning but the aid impetus is very short-lived. Expectations of the people are raised but the institution itself remains too weak. People become more dissatisfied because they are not seeing improvements in their quality of life. Professor Sud believes that the process of building state capacity must be modest and collective. The key is to create a state that delivers—a state that is legitimate for the people.

One key issue that the international community must address is the disconnect between what the aspirations are and what type of reforms are doable for the State. Building state institutions is a long and difficult process. The problem is that we don't really know how to build institutions. Professor Sud concluded by saying that this is an area that warrants further research.

Speaker Bio

Inder Sud is an economist with extensive background and experience in economic development in developing countries. He joined the Elliott School after a long and distinguished career at the World Bank, where he held a variety of senior management positions dealing with various aspects of development—country program management, development policy, project appraisal and financing, and privatization and private sector development. He has worked in most regions of the world, but most extensively in the Middle East, East Asia and the Pacific and South Asia.