Robert BuddanIF STATES fail to achieve
certain conditions or standards of development they are not automatically 'failed states'.
To say that Jamaica is a failed state, as one leading banker has, is a misunderstanding of what a failed state is. The term 'failed state' has a precise meaning in the international community. The United Nations needs to know when an entity has become a failed state in order to provide assistance to reconstitute legitimate government, provide citizens with humanitarian assistance, and re-establish a government that can fulfil its obligations to the international community.
PARALYSIS OF GOVERNANCE
For this reason, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, described a failed state as one in which state institutions, such as the police and judiciary, have collapsed with a resulting paralysis of governance, a breakdown in law and order, and general banditry and chaos, the functions of government are suspended, its assets are looted or destroyed and its officials are killed or forced to flee the country.
International military and humanitarian intervention is required to promote reconciliation and effective government. There is no body capable of representing the territory and people of the state at the international level. There is no institution capable of negotiating and enforcing national or inter
national decisions.
Failed states are the exception in the international community, and countries that have, at one time or the other, fit this description have been Haiti, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Liberia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Angola, Sudan and the Congo.
Many states in history have failed by this definition but the term was only recently contrived (in 1991/92) with the collapse of Somalia after cold war support for the regime ended.
In fact, modern failed states have arisen because of the collapse of cold war support from the former Soviet Union and the United States for artificial regimes that were propped up by arms, money and ideology from outside; or because colonial regimes destroyed traditional societies and failed to establish rooted and legitimate constitutional governments; or further when nation-building failed to establish new institutions
capable of meeting rapidly rising social and economic demands in the course of modernisation.
Very often, foreign governments cause a state to collapse by fuelling ethnic warfare or supporting rebel forces. States do not necessarily collapse by themselves.
Failed states might appear to be a Third World phenomenon, but European states have also undergone failure. This is true for states like Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Chechnya.
When states have failed the international community has to step in to reconstitute the state. A number of things are usually necessary: organising a cease-fire, negotiating a settlement, demobilising forces, integrating disarmed soldiers into civilian life, destroying weapons, resettling refugees, providing humanitarian assistance, rebuilding administrative structures, reorganising the police force, designing constitutional, judicial and electoral institutions, and co-ordinating economic rehabilitation and reconstruction.
As English-speaking Caribbean states approached independence, there were fears in some quarters that they might not be viable and could end up as failed states. There were fears that the new leaders might not be sufficiently committed to democracy, that the islands were too small to be economically viable, that they might be vulnerable to ideological subversion, and that because of their histories of slavery, they might succumb to racial and class wars, leading to ethnic genocide. None of these things have happened.
Jamaica's worst disasters have been political (1978-1980), economic (financial crisis of the late 1990s), the natural disasters of Hurricanes Gilbert and Ivan, and the current crime wave. Yet, the society has remained viable and has had the capacity to overcome some of the crises of the past.
By no standard of international law or the UN Security Council can Jamaica be said to be a failed state. By no known definition of a state, democracy, society, or government can Jamaica be said to be a failed state.
Jamaica is not only a recognised member of the United Nations but is a leader among developing states being currently chair of the Group of 77 and China.
Failed Markets
A real threat to human well-being comes, not from failed states, but from failed markets. Thirty per cent of the world's population live on less than US$1 a day. More than a quarter of the US population live below that country's poverty line, yet the U.S. is the most powerful state in the world. The world is more unequal today because the rich countries are 52 times wealthier than the poor ones today, compared to being 37 times wealthier in 1997.
In Jamaica, it was the failed financial sector that led to the massive growth of public sector debt that now limits the state's ability to spend what it needs on education and security. It is the state that often rescues failed companies like Air Jamaica despite the fact that more than 50 per cent of income taxes is not paid and 40 per cent of General Consumption Tax (GCT) is not paid. Failures of development cannot be explained away simply as state failure. Private citizens fail to meet their obligations to the state. Failures of development must be explained also by market failure and failure to achieve socially responsible citizenship.
Failures of development must also be explained by characteristics of states. Small island developing states bear the brunt of climate change and pollution and are vulnerable to ecological disasters. Dennis Morrison also recently pointed out that the average growth rate for small Caribbean states in recent years has not been strong, suggesting that small economies might not be faring best under globalisation.
Failures of development must also be explained by the model of development used. It is odd to say that states have failed when the neo-liberal ideology of today says that states must restrict themselves to doing less and allow markets to do more.
Henry Lui, a New York investor, says, neo-liberalism "prescribes policy measures that aggressively weaken the state apparatus and that inevitably leads to false statehood. At the same time, the U.S. is also the leading proponent of superpower intervention in failed states around the world. The number of victims from neo-liberalism far exceeds those from ethnic strife in failed states."
Assessing Failure
We well know Jamaica's failure to contain crime and violence and to get more from our educational system. But if we were to use these measures alone, Cuba would be one of the more successful states in the world and so too would China. However, if the Jamaican state was to be measured by democracy and human rights, including freedom of the market and press freedom, Jamaica would rank higher than most.
If investor-confidence and investment inflows were to be measures of the state, then Jamaica would be doing better than most.
In fact, by a curious coincidence, Jamaica and South Africa virtually tie for having the highest murder rates in the world and yet, according to the organisation Reporters Without Borders, they tie for having the best ratings in press freedom in the world, a higher ranking than The United States, Britain, France, Spain, Australia and Italy. Press freedom is one of the best measures of democracy so that the Jamaican state cannot be said to have failed as a democratic state.
Would oil-rich Muslim states be regarded as failed states? Even though they are rich and spend heavily on education and welfare and have low crime rates, they score badly on press and religious freedom and human rights generally. Many states fail to achieve certain standards of human rights and human development, but this does not make them failed states.
For years now, some people have been predicting the 'Cubanisation' (in the 1970s) or the "Haitianisation" (in the 1990s) of Jamaica. In either case, they have been predicting the failure of democracy and development. The 'failed state' argument falls within this stream of thought. But like the earlier arguments, the characterisation simply does not apply.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI. Email:
Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
