political conFlictS and Migration in the Mena StateS 179
the governments of those countries that had been aligned with the Soviet
Union, both internally and externally (Perthes 2000). The slow and diff icult
progress in the Middle East peace process, as well as its actual standstill
since September 2000 because of the al-Aqsa-Intifada, and the repercussions
thereof that go beyond the Arab states, had the effect of shifting the entire
MENA region – with all its interconnectedness with other conf licts – into
a permanent state of emergency.
5.4.1 Fragile statehood as exacerbating factor
The political scientist Thomas Risse (2005) concerned himself with areas of
limited statehood. In about two-thirds of all countries worldwide the state
monopoly of the use of force exists only to a limited degree. For this reason
the danger of failed states is to be regarded as one of the most important
problems of world politics. Wherever state power, particularly the state
monopoly in the use of force, is limited or missing, ‘power markets’ (the
privatisation and commercialisation of power) can develop, as Georg Elwert
(2006) showed, and ‘warlords’, terrorists and criminal organisations (or a
combination thereof) may provide for ‘order’ and circumvent or replace the
state authorities completely.
The Fund for Peace (2011), in its last Failed States Index, did an estimate
based on a total of 177 states and found that a number of MENA countries
should be deemed ‘critical states’ with respect to their statehood. Sudan,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen were ranked as three, seven, nine,
twelve and thirteen in the category ‘alert’. It is worth mentioning that
the Arab Spring had a strong impact on the ranking of Middle Eastern
countries. For example, countries like Libya and Syria, which were ranked
111 (Libya) and 48 (Syria) in the 2011 Index – ref lecting the situation in
2010 – set dramatically due to their internal conf licts (civil war). The existing
‘ungoverned territories’ (Rabasa, Boraz, Chalk, Cragin, Karasik, Moroney &
O’Brien 2007) and ‘safe-haven’ areas in the Middle East may not generally
expand in the medium term; rather, they will be limited to Afghanistan/
Pakistan (the northern border area of Afghanistan), parts of Iraq and Yemen,
and the border area of the Sahel states to North Africa, particularly Algeria,
Mauritania, Mali and Niger (because of the diff iculties arising from the mas-
sive armed enforcement operations and close cooperation of the countries in
question). Nevertheless, the proliferation of Libyan arms and the expanding
activities of al-Qaida in Yemen and the Sahel region make it much more
diff icult to reconquer ungoverned territories and eliminate safe havens.