Charles Tilly And State Failure

Charles Tilly (1929-2008) is a former sociologist and political scientist who introduced the idea of state-making through state-makers in global politics. Charles Tilly argued that state-making is the process by which state-makers eliminate other hostile or adverse powerful men within a given territory. State-makers are the power holders in society such as kings or landowners . In “Bringing the State Back” (Tilly, Charles. 172) Tilly argues that states are formed through a capricious and unintentional process by which state-makers enforce war in the pursuit of territory, human population and scarce resources. Tilly says that state-makers did not take part in the pivotal and costly tasks of war-making, extraction and capital accumulation with a mind set of ultimately forming a state. Rather, Tilly argued that the pursuit of resources for war-making, capital accumulation and extraction was required to gain territory, money and human population. Tilly describes capital accumulation as the process of investing money into warfare in return for future profits or benefits. Lastly, Tilly defines extraction as acquiring means such as population, money or weaponry to carry out the initial war-making process. Modern day rebel militant forces such as ISIS and the Taliban support Tilly’s explanation of state-making, however ISIS challenges the aspect of unintentional state-making, as it ultimately envisages the emergence of a state once the war-making is over.

Following military acts of governmental authority or national warfare, a significant worry arises for nations. As stated in the powerpoint, especially when the state is large and diverse, it is much more likely that it is becomes fragile. The question of whether the nation will need national-building, or state-building has to be determined in the case of military acts. State collapse can be due to the failure of the nation to convey favorable diplomatic benefits to the nation. The collapse of a state can be due to a number of reasons, for example the vast amount of governmental goods. Also, the failure of a nation can be caused by the lack of providing protection and safety, a permissible organization that examines

Charles Tilly’s article “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime” creates an analogy between the creation of European states and acting out an organized crime. Earlier in our course, we learned about Max Weber, who defined a state as “a human community that successfully claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” Tilly argues that the word “protection” in relation to physical force has positive and negative connotations, leading to illegitimate use of power during the period time that Tilly is discussing. Tilly’s analysis eventually tells the reader that war is always a major part of state politics; specifically that war making and state making are interdependent.

In the international arena, there is no hierarchical rule to keep states in line or behaved; meaning that the international system is constantly in anarchy, aka the state of nature. This lack of rule enforcement puts states in a constant state of war, in a constant state where they need to stay on guard and in a tactical advantage otherwise the safety and well being of their state will be in jeopardy. In this scenario, the state’s number one priority is to protect itself and act in its self interest when need be, despite if it would typically be deemed immoral. (Donnelly 20)

The most prevalent reasons for states going to war are security, interest, standing, and revenge; of these, I posit that security is the most frequent. For the purposes of this paper, I will focus on warfare occurring since the onset of the 20th century, however many of the core arguments retain efficacy through the countless centuries of human warfare. States don’t trust one another; even the best relationships between states are mired in spycraft with, or in opposition to one another. To summarize Waltz, drive for security is something that all states want, and need, as long as there are multiple states and at least one of them is looking for power.

“In an interconnected world, social and economic catastrophe in one country spills over onto its neighbours” (Chauvet, et al., 2007, p. 3). “Failing States” are often blamed for housing terrorist groups and transnational criminal enterprises, for the proliferation of small weapons, the spread of infectious disease, and endangering global energy security (Patrick, 2007; Lynch, 2016). They also account for a disproportionate amount of civil wars around the world and large number of refugee movements (Chauvet, et al., 2007). Outside countries, and agencies alike often find themselves intervening in the affairs of failing states to prevent “failure” from crossing boundary lines. On occasion the collapse of one administration can initiate a domino effect in neighbouring countries. The recent “Arab Spring” is one of the greatest examples of a “spillover” or domino effect in recent history (de Blij, et al., 2014). What began as an act of protest by a young Tunis man burning himself in December 2010, quickly grew into a number of public protests. A couple weeks later the Tunisian government was forced to step down and within months protests against established autocratic administration had diffused to nearby countries, and Libya, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Bahrain were experiencing similar public outcry (de Blij, et al.,

In a realist world, states have “supreme power” over its territory and population, there is an absence of a higher authority. The fact that there is no higher authority has its consequences. States become self-interested, they compete for power and security. It can lead states to continuously struggle for power “where the strong dominate the weak (Kegley, 28).” This ultimately creates a system in which each state is responsible for its own survival, making them cautious towards their neighboring states. In addition, a realist world is a self-help system; “political leaders seek to enhance national security” by building armies and forming alliances (Kegley, 28). Economic and military power are key components to a state sovereignty and to national security.

On a European level, and to a degree on an international level it is argued that national states have experience a decrease of sovereignty. This is due to some political powers giving been

The authors Jennifer Cooke and Richard Downie brought up some fantastic points when discussing how states become fragile, and the faults of donor countries when they try to assist them in becoming a stable country again. They also did an excellent job in describing each solution one must partake in to correct each major problem. However, when the authors described having to be in that state for longer time and doing it over a longer setting, it raised the question if the donor states would submit giving that country more time and resources to give it the extra reassurance that is would become stable again, and if they agreed to that kind of commitment, would

Those nations have failed because they fall into a cycle that has been repeated over and over, yet man refused to take heed. In the book The Fourth Turning,William Strauss and Niel Howe discovered that nations go through four cycles the first one compromising of an era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, a second one of spiritual upheaval, the third era is one of strengthening

The author looks at the sources leading to survival or collapse of ethnofederal states, and is seeking to explore the casual mechanisms leading to instability of ethnofederal state by examining the factors leading ethnofederal states to disintegration or civil wars. Hale argues that ethnofederal states that have a core ethnic region (CER) are highly prone to collapse. He defines CER as “a single ethnic federal region that enjoys dramatic superiority in population” (Hale 166). Hale posits that the presence of CERs in ethnofederal states is likely to cause three main challenges. These include ‘dual

The rise of terrorist organizations post 9/11 has challenged nation-state borders and their sovereignty. The presence of insurgencies and terrorist organizations has begun to affect the legitimacy of governments externally and their internal sovereignty.

No global definition exists for states described as “fragile”, “failing”, or failed because they come in all shapes and sizes. Yet, countries that have failed at the basic responsibilities of governance and sovereign authority are generally lumped into this group. Fragile, failing, or failed states share similar characteristics including their inability to control their borders, loss of authority over insurgents, gangs, and warlords, and loss of legitimacy internally/internationally. Examples relevant today of countries that are fragile or failing, and on the path to failed status include Iraq and many of the Middle Eastern countries struggling to maintain their autonomy in the fight against ISIS. Other important indicators of failed states include:

In “Structural Realism...” Waltz defends his theory of Structural Realism against criticism that its tenets are no longer valid in a post-Cold War world. The international system, he writes, is still anarchic, even though that system is unipolar instead of bipolar as it was during the Cold War, and that states still seek hegemony and power. A nation 's ideals and internal factors may count for something (he posits that the US intervention after the collapse of Yugoslavia was the result of such pressures),3 but they certainly shouldn 't. States should make decisions based on the idea of maintaining their own security and maintaining a balance of power in the international system.

Why Nations Fail takes an in depth look into why some countries flourish and become rich powerful nations while other countries are left in or reduced to poverty. Throughout this book review I will discuss major arguments and theories used by the authors and how they directly impact international development, keeping in mind that nations are only as strong as their political and economical systems.