Abstract

FLOREZ RUIZ, José Fernando. ¿Failed State or Failed Concept? Problems Arising from the notion of State Failure and the Indexes that Attempt to measure It. Rev. Derecho Estado [online]. 2011, n.27, pp.193-234. ISSN 0122-9893.

The dialectic of "failed states" supposed a rediscovery of the state with great virtues, such as implementing an interdisciplinary toolbox which allows construction of a global panoramic view of state performance. But it also raises serious difficulties due to the politicization suffered by the debate on state weakness after the 9/11 attacks. Thereafter, the manipulation of an initially academic concept by the U. S. foreign policy agenda, obsessed with security and focused on the war on terrorism, ended up by turning it into a new pretext for intervention in internal affairs of sovereign weaker states, impoverishing the notion of "failed state" to such an extent that it became analytically unusable. Furthermore, the growing geopolitical role of the concept of state failure was accompanied by the lack of methodological care in the preparation of the indexes that seek to measure it. There are many conceptual weaknesses in the notion of "failed state" and in the classifications that derive from it, as well as methodological flaws in the indexes that attempt to evaluate state performance. However, the analytical precariousness of poor state performance indexes (PSPI) has not been an obstacle for them to multiply and increase their influence in building the global imaginary about the qualities of the states, nor to be used as crucial tools in the formulation of public policy and the approval of multilateral aid. This article systematically reveals the main analytical and political obstacles faced by the notion of State failure and poor state performance indexes. The first part presents the conceptual difficulties offered by the definition of failed State. The second one develops the epistemological difficulties that must be overcome by the PSPI in their process of elaboration.

Keywords : Colombia; democracy; failed states; globalization; poor state performance indexes; public policy; State failure; State weakness.

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