[p2p-research] Postcards from Hell: What Failed States Look Like...

[Ryan Lanham]

I suppose like any list, there will be controversies.  Judging from FP's
comments, they touched a nerve.  The list has been around a while: See...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Failed_States_Index

It was interesting that it came out today.

The local intellectuals in the Cayman Islands have, in private discussions
with me, labelled Jamaica as a failed state more than once and it is but 119
on this list...one person's functioning state is clearly someone else's
failure.

To say that the Fund for Peace (they draw up the list) is respected across a
broad spectrum of political views and across the field of conflict
resolution would be understatement.   They are a premier organization at
least in the backwaters of Washington D.C.  They have been respected in
International Relations since before I started studying it in 1982.   No one
I know of would say they hold any particular political bent, left or right.
I would say that is generally true of Foreign Policy magazine as
well...though some see it as slightly to the right (e.g. in association with
founder Samuel Huntington.)   Fareed Zakaria who I much admire has long used
it as a vehicle. They do have a penchant for controversy.

It is remarkable that those states so often praised in this list almost
singularly round out the top "sustainable" ones.  My guess is that by any
measure more states will be in the bottom of the pile at the end of this
decade than now.

R.



On Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 7:06 PM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>wrote:

>  This article is sophmoric silliness... A failed state is a state that has
> failed... not one where we nice people in middle suburbs don't happen to
> like their politics or how they treat their garbage... It is a state that
> doesn't do the minimum that a state must do which is to provide an orderly
> framework for the conduct of internal affairs and for its relations with its
> external environment.
>
> I've been in to several of the places indicated in this list in the last
> couple of years (Ethiopia, Kenya, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) and while they have
> problems, often severe and even seemingly insurmountable economic, social
> and political problems they are not "failed states".
>
> Certainly places like Somalia and the Ivory Coast and a number of the
> others would likely qualify but under no circumstances would the five that
> I've visited directly nor many of the others that I know secondarily fall
> under that definition.
>
> MBG
>
>  -----Original Message-----
> *From:* p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org [mailto:
> p2presearch-bounces at listcultures.org] *On Behalf Of *Ryan Lanham
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 22, 2010 3:45 PM
> *To:* Peer-To-Peer Research List
> *Subject:* [p2p-research] Postcards from Hell: What Failed States Look
> Like...
>
> http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/postcards_from_hell
>
> --
> Ryan Lanham
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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