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Posted on Mar 27, 2019 in Teaching & Education

Failed States (IV): a typology by Jean-Germain Gros (II)

Jean-Germain Gros finally sketches five factors which he associates to failed states:

·Economic bad performance: as an example, three of the countries reviewed in the article, namely, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti recorded in the 1990 World Bank Development Report as some of those reportingthelowestgrowthratesbetween1965and1988:Rwanda1,5%;SomaliaandHaiti0,5%.This was naturally coupled by lowGNP.

·Lackofsocialsynergy:Ahighdegreeofsocialdislocationisalsotypicallypresentinfailedstates,mostly marked by extreme income disparities between rich and poor and with an almost inexistent middle class, that which, according to the author, gives hope to the poor and assuages fear of losing one´s riches. Political extremism is the logicalconsequence.

·Authoritarianism: A necessary consequence of the social problems that these countries face is the recoursetoauthoritarianism.Thiscanbetheneededinstrumentbyanexiguouselite toruleoveralarge population in opposition to the latter´s realinterests.

·Militarism: These kind of authoritarian regimes are typically militarist regimes where only armed forces can ensure domination over the rest of the citizens. The author lists Siad Barre (Somalia), Samuel Doe (Liberia), Juvénal Habyarimana (Rwanda) or Raoul Cedras (Haïti) as military leaders. The big role assured for the army introduces additional distortions in the disproportionate economic weight army has for the statebudget.Forexample,beforedisintegrating,Haïtidevotedasmuchas40%ofitsbudgettoitsarmy!

·Environmentaldegradation:Finally,wemayfindhowthisitemweightslargeinmanyofthefailedstates, provoking so-called Malthusian crises, namely, a fateful mismatch between existing resources and population.AclassicalexamplecanbefoundinRwanda,whichwasontheeveofthegenocidethemost densely populated country of its continent (in the early 80s three fifths of its population were under 30!). Something similar happened in Somalia: despite having a low population density, the country had only 2% of its territory fit foragriculture!

Non-Proliferation: as we can see in Article I, signatories pledge nor to transfer nuclear weapons (or related devices) nor to encourage its production by non-nuclear states. Article II reads similarly but this time directed to non-nuclear states. Through these two articles, the NPT would secure the status quo and avoid a situation which would make nuclear war more likely.

• Disarmament: the necessary counterpart to non-proliferation and that which would in fact reinforce nonnuclear powers´ commitment to non-proliferation is arguably disarmament by the existing nuclear powers. Otherwise, non-proliferation would be seen as an instrument to secure a situation of huge unbalance. According to the NPT (Article IX-3), are recognized as nuclear –weapon States those who have “manufactured and exploded a nuclear weapon or other nuclear explosive device prior to 1 January, 1967”. Pursuant to Article VI, these five states (US; USSR; UK; France; China) should take good faith negotiations in order to cease any nuclear arm races and eventually completely disarm from nuclear weapons.

• Peaceful use: In order to ensure that the non-proliferation regime did not pose any obstacle to the peaceful use of nuclear energy, demanded by so many countries, the NPT acknowledged it as a right and encouraged cooperation.

Mainly three periods have witnessed progress in nuclear disarmament between the US and the USSR:

• In the first period, as mentioned above, the distension between Washington and Moscow brought forward three landmark agreements: ABM and SALT I and II:

o The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) was signed in 1972 in the framework of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) and provided for the prohibition of anti-missile systems.

o SALT further progressed and led to two more treaties, SALT I (1972) and SALT II (1979), which limited the development of delivery means.

o However, SALT did not tackle the issue of elimination of nuclear warheads.

• The second period, and the most prolific to date came with the progressive end of the Cold War under the framework of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START): START I and START II were the result.

o START I (1993) and START II (2000) went beyond SALT treaties as they did not just limit strategic weapons, but actually reduced existing delivery means and the deployment of nuclear weapons. These initial successes were tarnished by the US decision in 2001 to withdraw from the ABM, to which the Russian Federation responded withdrawing from START II. The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) was signed in 2002 in substitution; this was however a limitation treaty in the spirit of SALT.

The third period was marked by the signature in 2010 of the New START:

• The number of nuclear missile launchers should be reduced by half. It must be noted that contrary to the START III that had been envisioned back in the 90s, withdrawn nuclear warheads would not be destroyed

• The truth is that progress has remained scarce since the signature of the New START; the latest proposal from the side of the US president was to reduce the ceiling by one third (2013). However, this has had scarce success.

• One of the reasons is that the Russian Federation insists on adopting a so-called “integrative approach”, that is, to include other items apart from nuclear weapons: missile defense; long-range, precision-guided conventional weapons; and “space weapons”; those areas precisely where the US retains a significant edge.

In 1944 already, was formed the United Nations Relief and Reconstruction Agency (UNRRA) to deal with this problem. It is noteworthy that the US and the UK preferred the term “displaced” instead of “refugee”: they wanted to stress that hosting these people would be only temporary.

• However, tensions between East and West blocked the way for many refugees to come back to countries located at the East of the Iron Curtain. Therefore, relocation became necessary. It is in this context that the UNRRA was substituted in 1947 by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). The truth is that the context helped to relocate refugees: after the war, many nations needed to make up for depleted manpower and were therefore open to refugees.

The IRO then transformed in 1951 into a permanent body, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This was also the year when the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was signed, representing a new watershed in the development of the international regime for refugees. However, the convention could not change the fundamentals: asylum remained a right not of the refugee, but, of course, of the host state, as states maintain that prerogative as sovereign entities. The convention recognized a series of rights for the refugees as the right to remain and the right to return, while it also established the principle of non-refoulement and the right of first asylum.One of the critical elements of this convention was that it referred to refugees provoked by “events occurring before 1 January 1951”. This established a clear restriction to refugees coming from outside Europe, betraying a clearly Eurocentric approach. The reality of upcoming decades would soon belie this approach.

The distinction between migration and refugees can often be blurred. However, we might surmise that:

• Refugees move because of an intolerable worsening of their situation at home.

• Migrants move in order to improve their position abroad.

• It is thus that the need to migrate remains in the realm of voluntary decisions, whereas refugees are “forced” by circumstances.

• The distinction is hard to strike in many cases, where citizens leave decaying economies at home: how bad does the economy need to be to be simply a migrant or an “economic refugee”. This arguably remains open to debate.