Fixing Fragile States : A New Paradigm for Development

by Kaplan, Seth D.

• ISBN13: 9780275998288
• ISBN10: 0275998282
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-06-30
• Publisher: Greenwood Pub Group

Summary

Fragile states are a menace. Their lawless environments spread instability across borders, provide havens for terrorists, threaten access to natural resources, and consign millions of people to poverty. But Western attempts to reform these benighted places have rarely made things better. Kaplan argues that to avoid revisiting the carnage and catastrophes seen in places like Iraq, Bosnia, and the Congo, the West needs to rethink its ideas on fragile states and start helping their peoples build governments and states that actually fit the local landscape. Fixing Fragile States lays bare the fatal flaws in current policies and explains why the only way to give these places a chance at peace and prosperity is to rethink how development really works. Flawed governance systems, not corrupt bureaucrats or armed militias, are the cancers that devour weak states. The cure, therefore, is not to send more aid or more peacekeepers but to redesign political, economic, and legal structures-to refashion them so they can leverage local traditions, overcome political fragmentation, expand governance capacities, and catalyze corporate investment.

Table of Contents

Illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. xi
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction: Why Fragile States Matter	p. 1
Diagnosis
Fostering Development: The Missing Ingredients	p. 17
Fragile States, Fractured Societies	p. 35
Prescriptions
A New Paradigm for Development	p. 49
Application
West Africa: Stitching a Fragmented Region Together	p. 67
The Democratic Republic of the Congo: Constructing the State Bottom Up	p. 82
Syria: Countering Sectarianism with Unifying Institutions	p. 98
Somaliland: Reconnecting State and Society	p. 114
Bolivia: Building Representative Institutions in a Divided Country	p. 130
Pakistan: Redirecting a Country's Trajectory	p. 146
Azerbaijan: Pressing Reform on an Autocracy	p. 164
Notes	p. 179
Index	p. 203
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