In Sum: The State and Challenges Beyond 177The Fund for Peace, in conjunction with Foreign Policy, publishes the Fragile State
Index annually, based on 12 social, economic, and po liti cal indicators. South Sudan,
Somalia, Central African Republic, Demo cratic Republic of the Congo, and Sudan are
among the most fragile states. What ever the term used— fragile, failed, weak, dysfunc-
tional states— the implications are the same.
Fragile states pose an internal threat to the people residing within them. They fail to
perform one of the state’s vital functions— protection of its people from vio lence and
crime. Po liti cal, civil, and economic rights of a fragile state’s population are in continuous
jeopardy. Such states are unable to serve their citizenry, one of the requisites of sovereignty.
Fragile states also pose an international threat, serving as hideaways for transnational
terrorists, criminals, and pirates, as Somalia did when its functioning government
ceased to exist in 1991. Since 2007, there have been attempts to rebuild that government
with the African Union forces providing a modicum of security. A 2012 provisional
constitution is supposed to lead to national elections in 2016. But given the difficulties
in conducting traditional elections, elders from the four main Somali clans will act as
representative electors. And Somaliland in the north has ignored the whole pro cess, in
practice becoming a de facto but unrecognized state. Libya in 2016 also approaches
fragile state status: border security is non ex is tent, facilitating refugee and mi grant
flows across the Mediterranean Sea; corruption is rampant; the coast guard, lacking
adequate equipment, rarely leaves port. Warring militias represent the only law. There
are at least three governments in dif er ent regions and tensions between tribes and
Islamist militias. Each depends on dif er ent subnational loyalties and has allegiances
to dif er ent international groups, including the IS. Plans for a UN- proposed unity
government are unlikely in the near future.
In sum: the state and challenges beyond
The centrality of the state in international politics cannot be disputed. In this chapter,
we have conceptualized the state according to the contending theoretical perspectives.
We have looked inside the state to describe the vari ous forms of state power. We have
discussed the ways states are able to use power through the diplomatic, economic, and
coercive instruments of statecraft. We have explored the question of whether certain
kinds of governments— democracies in particular— behave diferently from nondem-
ocracies. We have looked at actors within the state to identify dif er ent models of for-
eign policy decision making. And we have examined the ways in which globalization,
transnational religious and ideological movements, ethnonationalist movements, trans-
national crime, and fragile states pose threats to state sovereignty and to the stability of
the international system. Such movements, however, depend on individuals, who lead
the challenge. Some are elites who are charismatic and power ful leaders in their own
right. Some are part of a mass movement. We now turn to these individuals.