When States! Fall Apart by! Benjamin Aaron! Oppenheim ! ! ! A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the Graduate! Division of the University of California,! Berkeley ! ! ! Committee in charge: Professor Steven Weber, Chair Professor Ron Hassner Professor Edwin Epstein Professor George Rutherford Spring! 2014 ! Abstract When States Fall Apart by Benjamin Aaron Oppenheim Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley ! Professor Steven Weber, Chair Failed states—countries in which governing institutions have corroded or collapsed— are considered by many scholars to pose a grave threat to global security. Policymakers broadly share this view. The United States’ 2002 National Security Strategy flatly declared that “America is now threatened less by conquering states than by failing ones”, while the United Nations warns of the !global dangers posed by states that cannot meet their responsibilities as sovereign powers. The conventional wisdom on the risks posed by failed states represents a significant shift in international relations scholarship, which has traditionally emphasized the threat that strong states pose to weaker polities. It also represents a shift in foreign policy, as fears of state failure have flooded resources into shoring up weak states and reconstructing failed ones. But do failed states pose a global security threat? Despite the stakes, there has been little empirical research that isolates and tests the causal mechanisms linking state failure with specific threats. This project empirically assesses the consequences of state failure, through an investigation of several security threats of global significance: transnational terrorism, and pandemic disease outbreaks. The core finding of the research is that failed states largely do not act as “exporters” of international security hazards. To the contrary, that the aspects of institutional incapacitation that analysts frequently highlight—broken security institutions, weak public service provision, corroded infrastructure— often render failed states systematically less likely to propagate security threats than higher- capacity states. However, though fragile and failed states do not pose a generic and grave international security risk, they remain sites of endemic violence and instability. And so while the security imperative for engagement may be limited, the moral case remains. Accordingly, the second element of the dissertation explores the dynamics of statebuilding and reconstruction, focusing in particular on the linkage between institutional reconstruction and legitimacy. While international efforts to reconstruct failed states have generally focused on legitimation through the establishment of liberal-democratic institutions, the results suggest that delivery of basic services, rather than governance processes alone, play a vital role in structuring popular perceptions of state legitimacy. Building systems to effectively deliver services is necessarily a long-term process, implying that !efforts to reconstruct fragile states will need to be sustained if they are to succeed. !1 To my family and friends. And especially to Liz. !i ! Acknowledgements This project covered a great deal of intellectual ground, from statebuilding to epidemiology. Throughout the research and writing, I had the extraordinary benefit of advice and encouragement from a great many scholars and policy experts. And while there is no way that I can give adequate thanks for such generosity, I want to offer my deep !thanks. First and foremost, to Steve Weber, my advisor at UC Berkeley, who pushed me to ask big questions, to be open to unexpected answers, and find unorthodox ways of getting traction on messy problems. I’m grateful to George Rutherford, Ron Hassner, and Ed Epstein, who provided terrific feedback, advice, and questions throughout. Stewart Patrick’s 2006 article on the myths and misunderstandings of the risks generated by failed states was an early inspiration for this research, and along the way he provided many illuminating !conversation on both theory and policy implications, for which I'm most grateful. Many friends and colleagues, near and far, provided an intellectual community and constant source of support. To Peter Bartu, Kelly Greenhill, Nat Colletta, Christian Ford, Michael Weintraub, Eric Nonacs, Nelson Gonzalez, Enzo Nussio, Johanna Söderstrom, Jamie O’Connell, Nina Kelsey, Daniel Katz, Felicity Kolp, Jason Klocek, Genevieve Lester, !Sebastian Kaplan-Sears, and Joshua Kagan—thank you. The research on state failure and statebuilding benefited from many conversations with researchers and practitioners who helped me to better understand the complexities of institutional collapse, and the deep challenges of institution-building. My thanks go to David Leonard, Chris Ansell, Mick Moore, Bruce Jones, Nils Gilman, Clare Lockhart, !Michael Barnett, Gordon Hein, Bruce Jentleson, Tom Parks, Larry Simon, and Bill Cole. The work on viral threats to global health took me into new territory, and I’m grateful for the interest and support of many terrific scholars and public health practitioners who helped me orient and grapple with the complexities of the field. Special thanks go to Steve Morse, Ron Waldman, Harley Feldbaum, Andrew Price-Smith, Art Reingold, Steve Luby, Liam Brierley, and Margaret Kruk. Presentations at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s Global Health Seminar, and at Global Viral/Metabiota, yielded terrific feedback and questions, and I’m grateful to Rachel Irwin, Jeremy Alberga, Karen Saylors, and Robert Mann. In developing the chapter on terrorism and political violence, I benefited a great deal from conversations with Martha Crenshaw, James Piazza, Ed Micklous, Peter Flemming, Jake Shapiro, and Joe Felter, all of whom generously shared !their knowledge. No idea makes it far without data. I am especially grateful to David Carment and Stewart Prest of the Canadian Indicators for Foreign Policy [CIFP] project, whose generosity and openness made it possible to do cross-national research that directly addressed the ways in which policymakers define and understand fragile states. Harrison Dekker, at UC !ii Berkeley’s Data Lab, provided invaluable guidance on a variety of data structure !challenges. Early on, I received generous support for two speaker series that helped me to refine and better understand the contours of the questions I was asking. UC Berkeley’s Religion, Politics, and Globalization Program, and the Berkeley Human Rights Center, generously supported a speaker series on fragile states and global security challenges. This series brought a number of wonderful experts and practitioners to Berkeley, and I’m grateful to Sarah Bamberger and Camille Crittenden for supporting the initiative. The Canadian Consulate of Northern California— and particular, David Stewart and Molly Colin— sponsored several roundtables on international engagement in fragile states. This series helped me think about international response capacity: what it assumed, how it !performed, and how it might be improved. Lastly, I gratefully acknowledge support provided by a dissertation fellowship from the University of California Institute on Global Cooperation and a Simpson Fellowship from UC Berkeley’s Institute of International Studies, and the vibrant intellectual support provided by a visiting fellowship with Uppsala University’s Forum on Peace, Democracy, and Justice. !iii 1: Introduction and framework ! “America is now threatened less by conquering states than by failing ones…”1 —2002 National Security Strategy of the United States of America! ! “People now place their hope in God, since the government is no longer involved in such matters”2 —unknown! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1 White House, 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, p. 1 2 Un-named citizen of Armenia, quoted in Deepa Narayan, Raj Patel, Kai Schafft, Anne Rademacher, Sarah Koch-Schulte, Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices From 47 Countries, in Voices of the Poor, Volume I, World Bank, 1999 p. 78. Retrieved at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/ 335642-1124115102975/1555199-1124115187705/vol1.pdf !1 !1. The problem of disorder During the late 20th century and early 21st century, the major narratives on the role of power in international politics were inverted. The theory and practice of statecraft have traditionally focused on the distribution and exercise of power: which states have power, how power is derived and deployed, and how its exercise is shaped or constrained by ideas and norms. Yet during this period, national security and international relations debates focused great attention on the threats and challenges introduced by fragile and failed states; that is, on countries that lacked power and capacity to govern their own territory, much less project it abroad.3 During this period, as one influential theorist and commentator put it, “weak and failing states have arguably become the single most 4 !important problem for international order.” Why would failed states—countries in which governing institutions have corroded or collapsed—pose a problem for the rest of the globe? The very weakest polities are now considered by many scholars to drive an astonishing array of transnational security threats. International terrorism, pandemic disease outbreaks, criminal networks, the “spillover” of civil wars into neighboring countries, are