Is ‘state fragility’ the appropriate term for analysing the capabilities of emerging states? This paper from the Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict Management argues that current approaches to state-building rest on a narrow understanding of the sources of political order. Such approaches focus too heavily on the technical and bureaucratic functions of the state. Emerging states should instead be viewed, not as fragile entities lacking capabilities, but as hybrid political orders whose sources of legitimacy are often more socially and culturally rooted.
‘State fragility’ is often presented as one of the world’s most pressing security and development problems. While definitions vary across the literature, there is consensus that degrees of fragility and failure can be identified by analysing the capacity of institutions to perform core state functions. The prescription for fragile states is inevitably some form of state-building, with the goal of strengthening institutions and building capacity in state actors.
The success of these state-building interventions has been generally unsuccessful. Newly imposed states lacked roots in the recipient societies, undermining their legitimacy, and subsequent economic and political reforms only served to further erode the state’s capabilities and institutions. What emerges instead in the developing world is a hybrid political order in which ‘the state’ is only one actor among others. As such, it does not have a privileged position; it has to share authority, legitimacy, and capacity with other structures. This alternate conception yields several findings:
- Rather than rejecting these hybrid orders as examples of fragility or failure, it would be prudent to recognise them for what they are and incorporate them into a portfolio of state-building interventions.
- Recognising hybrid orders may result in states that differ significantly from the Western ideal. However, this ‘weakness’ from an external perspective may be a strength locally as ‘the state’ embraces existing institutions and provides a co-ordinating framework for local orders of governance.
- State weakness has two dimensions: weakness with regard to capacities of implementation and enforcement and weakness of legitimacy. State-building must work on both fronts to be effective.
Reconceptualising fragile states as hybrid political orders opens up new options for governance. Donors can shift the focus from narrow models of state-building to understanding and engaging with hybrid institutions. This shift implies some recommendations for external actors for assisting the development of emerging states:
- Move beyond the concept of ‘the state’ as a set of institutions that can be delivered as a product and accept the political nature of state-building
- Recognise the positive potential of so-called negative features of fragile states, turning weakness and fragility into innovation and hybridity
- Engage with communities and non-state customary institutions as well as central state governments and institutions.
