Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Jul 07, 2010 Editorial
Foreign Policy Magazine, in collaboration with the Fund for Peace, has just announced its 2010 “Failed States Index” (FSI). As with most of these rankings from foreign sources (this one has been issued annually since 2005) the governors of those states that fare poorly will be up in arms while their critics will be clapping their hands in glee. As the old chestnut from social science methodology goes, what we see depends on where we stand and in which direction we are looking.
As we have emphasised in the past, the preceding wisdom does not just apply to the subject- regimes and their opponents – but perhaps even more pertinently, to those that have constructed the index and collected the data that fleshes it out. Foreign Policy was founded by the late Samuel Huntington (of Clash of Civilizations fame) who was very close to the foreign policy establishment of the US while Fund For Peace is a US think tank. Thus that it fails to point out that almost every country in the Top Ten (Haiti was #11) – Somalia, Chad, Sudan, D.R. Congo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Central African Republic, Guinea and Pakistan – got there because of some western intervention or other in the post-WWII era, might not be entirely coincidental.
With that caveat in mind, the index is not entirely bereft of heuristic value: while it may be historically obtuse, it does correlate fairly well with such other indexes as the World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessments (CPIA), which the latter institution utilises to decide on the level and nature of aid it doles out to poorer countries.
“Failed states” (also called “Crises States”, “Dysfunctional States”, “Declining States”, “Fragile States”, “Disintegrating States”, Collapsing States”, “Dissolving States”, “Disordered States”, “Collapsed States”, “Paralyzed States”, “Virtual States”, “vulnerable states”) are generally considered to be those with regimes/governments that are incapable of meeting the most elementary functions of governance, such as guaranteeing territorial integrity and law and order.
The FSI utilises twelve metrics so as to introduce a measure of rigour in their assessment. It deploys these indicators – political, social and economic – on a scale of 0-10, with 0 being the lowest intensity (most stable) and 10 being the highest intensity (least stable to give scores for 0-120 to measure the vulnerabilities of 177 sovereign states.
The information is gathered over eight months – May to December – and electronically collected by Thomson Dialog, a data base which contains a massive collection of “international and local media reports and other public documents, including U.S. State Department reports, independent studies, and even corporate financial filings.”
There are six political metrics – criminalisation or delegitimisation of the state, deterioration of the public services (in delivery of public goods), violations of human rights, security apparatus (rogue/compromised), factionalised elites and external interventions. The social factors are: demographic factors, movement of refugees and internally displaced persons, vengeance-seeking group grievance and sustained human flight. Economic indicators selected are: uneven economic development and severe economic decline. Guyana with a score of 73 was ranked 104th just above Suriname with 73.2. In comparison Jamaica was 68.6/117, T&T 66.7/123, and Barbados 57.2/135. They were all categorised as “borderline” in comparison to those that were worse off – “in danger” and “critical” or better off “stable” and “most stable”.
Guyana received its worst scores in the areas of uneven development, human flight and security apparatus. Now whether one may agree or disagree with the numbers assigned to our polity (for instance, we do not understand why even a score of 3 was conferred due to “refugees/displaced persons) we do believe the criteria provide a basis for a healthy debate – especially in the present pre-electoral climate of heightened debate. It is the facts needed that will prove to be the sticking point.
One can look at the historical background of the individual adverse criterion (as Minister Rohee recently did on the problematic of group grievance – “racism” – that was identified by the departing British High Commissioner) from a standpoint of dealing with the problem – if there is acceptance that there is one. The state of our state is not an inconsequential state of affairs. We need to give the consideration of its status the most serious attention.
LISTEN HOW JAGDEO WILL MAKE ALL GUYANESE RICH!!!
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