Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World [Hardcover]

Ashraf Ghani (Author), Clare Lockhart (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0195342690 | ISBN-13: 978-0195342697

Today between forty and sixty nations, home to more than one billion people, have either collapsed or are teetering on the brink of failure. The world's worst problems--terrorism, drugs and human trafficking, absolute poverty, ethnic conflict, disease, genocide--originate in such states, and the international community has devoted billions of dollars to solving the problem. Yet by and large the effort has not succeeded.

Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have taken an active part in the effort to save failed states for many years, serving as World Bank officials, as advisers to the UN, and as high-level participants in the new government of Afghanistan. In Fixing Failed States, they describe the issue--vividly and convincingly--offering an on-the-ground picture of why past efforts have not worked and advancing a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises. For the paperback edition, they have added a new preface that addresses the continuing crisis in light of ongoing governance problems in weak states like Afghanistan and the global financial recession. As they explain, many of these countries already have the resources they need, if only we knew how to connect them to global knowledge and put them to work in the right way. Their state-building strategy, which assigns responsibility equally among the international community, national leaders, and citizens, maps out a clear path to political and economic stability. The authors provide a practical framework for achieving these ends, supporting their case with first-hand examples of struggling territories such as Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo and Nepal as well as the world's success stories--Singapore, Ireland, and even the American South.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ghani and Lockhart, both former U.N. advisers to Afghanistan, spotlight the critical problem of failed states: countries where governments have all but collapsed, basic services go unprovided and terrorism and criminality reign unchecked—or even abetted—by a corrupt and predatory state. The authors do a fine job in emphasizing the centrality of a strong, accountable state in addressing poverty and underdevelopment. Unfortunately, their analysis suffers from its heavy reliance on management theory. Abstractions (such as the power of networks, flows of information and capital, webs of value creation) and business-school truisms (underlying a sound management system is an effective supply-chain management) litter their turgid discussion. Fixated on New Economy conceits, they say little about the crucial task of quelling violence and lawlessness; instead they dwell on globalization-oriented development strategies drawn from Ireland, Singapore, Oregon and other regions that are not failed states. (Fatuously, they even liken Sudan's travails to those of troubled conglomerate Tyco International.) The authors do offer a persuasive critique of the ill-conceived, incoherent aid complex run by the U.N. and other agencies, which, they argue, undermines and supersedes weak states instead of stabilizing them. Aid officials could learn from these insights, but they don't amount to a comprehensive fix-it. (May)
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Review

"Clear, taut language makes it accessible at almost any level of education...a roadmap to a groundbreaking new solution to this most pressing of global crises."--United Press International

"Ashraf Ghani is a practitioner turned theoretician. Drawing on his background at the World Bank and as the first post-Taliban finance minister of Afghanistan, he together with Clare Lockhart develops a comprehensive framework for understanding the problem of state-building. He argues persuasively that this will be the central challenge underpinning world order in our globalized age, and offers practical solutions for meeting it."--Francis Fukuyama, author of State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century

"This book is an important and timely alarm bell for the world's next crisis-and proves that no one knows more about how states function (and don't) than Ghani and Lockhart. We ignore their remedies at our peril."--Hernando de Soto, author of The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else

"Fixing Failed States provides a brilliantly crafted and extraordinarily valuable analysis of what makes states fail and what makes them succeed. Everyone concerned about improved governance-and particularly public officials at all levels in industrialized, emerging and developing nations alike-will benefit enormously from reading this and studying the great insights it provides."--Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs (International)

"Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart have filled a critical gap in our understanding of development, security and state-building. By combining an insightful analysis of weak and failed states with a clear-eyed proposal rooted in practical experience, the authors provide the international community with both a better understanding of the challenges we face and a solution."--Gayle Smith, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and former Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council

"Ashraf Ghani has held one of the toughest jobs on earth: the Finance Minister responsible for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. This experience grounds the analysis of failed states in a rare sense of realism. Here, he and Clare Lockhart cover the full array of problems that beset failed states, which range far beyond the conventional remit of development agencies."--Paul Collier, author of The Bottom Billion

"The authors...offer a persuasive critique of the ill-conceived, incoherent 'aid complex' run by the U.N. and other agencies, which, they argue, undermines and supersedes weak states instead of stabilizing them."--Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 2, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195342690
• ISBN-13: 978-0195342697
• Product Dimensions: 0.9 x 6.1 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,471 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

50 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Utterly brilliant on the half the author's understand best April 12, 2008

By Robert David STEELE Vivas HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is an utterly brilliant book that has held my attention all morning. Although the authors do not integrate the thinking in the ten books below, I am totally, deeply, impressed by their intelligence, knowledge, and good intention.

They set out to develop understanding in five areas:

1. What State needs to do
2. How international community can help
3. How timelines and interdependencies should define sequencing
4. Why one size does NOT fit all
5. Why we must accept our shared responsibility and recognize the need for both proactive intervention, and coproduction (and sharing) of wealth.

I started with the endnotes and index, which is where I begin the most intelligent books in my reading program. I immediately detected the gaps that I address with the ten annotated links, but I was also immediately won over in seeing their appreciation for the report of the High Level Threat Panel of the UN, for Singapore under Lee Kwan Yew, for the balanced score card approach (some call for a triple bottom line), for Paul Collier's focus on the bottom billion, for Paul Hawkin's et al on natural capitalism.

Within the notes, I was shocked to learn that it has been reported that the United Nations deprived Afghanistan of the first two and a half years of all donor contribution, "by agreement" with US Government and World Bank. Since one of the author's has served as Finance Minister in Afghanistan, not only do I believe this--it must never happen again.

I find in this book one of the most original, refreshing, relevant, and therefore essential reviews on the matter of the State.... Although the author's do not cite McIver, the original master on the origins and functions of the state, I consider them to be the new thought leaders and essential to any discussion of how to improve the inter-relationships among the eight tribes of governance: states, militaries, law enforcement authorities, academics, businesses, media, non-governmental organizations, and civil society including labor unions and religions. They are wrong-headed in thinking that "only sovereign states...will allow human progress to continue," and that "illegitimate networks will not be conquered except through hierarchical organizations," but in no way does this diminish the extreme importance of their deep thinking on the role of the state and the need to change both our concepts of sovereignty and our rules of the road for international organizations.

A useful early idea is that of the "double compact" between the country leadership and the international community on the one hand, and with the citizens on the other. It becomes obvious very quickly that corruption in government service is the single cancer that must be removed before states can achieve legitimacy and efficacy.

The authors have many gifted turns of phrase to include "harnessing our collective energies and readjusting to emerging patterns."

The authors recognize early on that legitimacy comes from below, from citizens, and must be earned.

I am not going to summarize each chapter, but I want to point readers toward the Army War College Strategy Conference, just concluded, on "Rebalancing the Instruments of National Power." I have posted both 29 pages of notes and an 8-page draft article for the Joint Forces Quarterly. Singapore got it early and is the world's first "smart nation." They understood early on that education powers economics, economics powers security, and so on.

Today, the authors document ably, stewardship of the environment, respect for social entrepreneurship, fair trade, and innovation in applying information technology to create wealth are all coming to the fore with honest leaders.

They identify five aspects of the networked world that are of note:

1. Framework for balancing activities of diverse stakeholders
2. Rule of law at a strategic level, with freedom of action at a tactical level (not quite true in the USA where the corrupt federal Congress establishes federal CEILINGS for regulatory action).
3. Massive investment--one reads repeatedly of the glut of money available for emerging markets (and I would add, the absence of both commercial intelligence and co-investment planning with charitable foundations)
4. World is evolving according to open systems (super point, see my keytone briefing to Gnomedex 2008, "Open Everything."
5. World is finally starting to evolve past rote memorization and toward recognizing patterns (the adaptive complex system and panarchy literature covers this well).

In the middle of the book they have six themes, each developed in a manner that makes this book quite valuable for any library, personal or organizational.

1. Conflict causes polarization of identities *and* ungovernability of aid subject to black market rules.
2. Peacemaking has been geared to compromise rather than strategic planning for a long-term outcome
3. This means that state dysfunctionality is highest immediately after the peace accord.
4. Even if civil war does not break out, cost of failed politics and poor policies is immense.
5. Lack of money is not the driver for poverty, but rather corrupt politics that enrich the few at the expense of the many.
6. Dysfunctional states spawn the rise and spread of networks of criminality and wealth confiscation instead of networks of social wealth creation and sharing.

The book concludes with "A New Agenda for State Building"

1. International compacts
2. Sovereignty strategy
3. Shared rules of the game
4. Mobilization of resources (this would be better titled harmonization of resources--we need Global Range of Gifts Tables for every country down to the village hut level, online, updated by national call centers
4. New leadership styles--this is a superb overview of what it takes to migrate from industrial era pyramidal leadership to Epoch B swarm leadership (see the image I am loading above).
5. Reflexive monitoring at every step of the implementation process
6. Double compact in practice

The final two chapters focus on national programs, and in conclusion, on "Collective Power."

I put the book down feeling GREAT. This book is a seminal reference.

Now for ten books (and my reviews) that round out this one book:
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State
High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition
The leadership of civilization building: Administrative and civilization theory, symbolic dialogue, and citizen skills for the 21st century
Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics, and Ethics as Anthropological Problems
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas, Updated Edition
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace Read more ›

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A necessary work April 26, 2008

By Ken M.

Format:Hardcover

This is an important, easy-to-understand look at why rebuilding failing states should be the at the top of our country's priority list. The authors provide clear cut examples of why previous efforts to curb corruption and terrorism have failed, and offer a viable "framework" for fixing these systems.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Informative book but rather general June 14, 2009

By M. Werner

Format:Hardcover

I would recommend reading this book to gain a rather general sense of the important issues in addressing failed states. I think the authors make a strong case for the desperate need for a more strategic/management-based approach to statebuilding.

My criticism is that I felt that the authors were often randomly picking and choosing examples that seemed to "nicely" fit their thesis while overlooking more complex cases of state failure (such as the DRC or Somalia) where their approach appears almost too clean to implement. I would have really appreciated a deeper assessment of a difficult case study where the authors attempted to implement their approach while discussing the myriad of complexities and shortcomings of their own strategies.

Though the authors do a decent job critiquing the UN and the failures of Western government interventions, I think they needed to go farther in addressing the issue of resource extraction and how the interests of the developed world in continuing such policies (or ignoring such activities all together) contradict directly with true sustainable development. If the market model is really the answer, as the authors contend, then which agency (or group of states?) can effectively serve as the honest broker in the battle between market profit/development vs. sustainable state building? This is a very important issue to address given the power imbalances between the key actors in the international system. Such imbalances exacerbate failed interventions and perpetuate state failure.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic ideas, dense book September 13, 2009

By Paul K.

Format:Hardcover

I found this book after watching a talk by Clare Lockart at the Aspen Ideas Festival website.

The talk is amazing--I said to myself "finally, here is somebody with novel, systemic insights into international development--what works and what doesn't work." So I was very excited to get the book.

I found the book to be a somewhat tough read. In the first half the commentary wanders more than it needs to. It's clear that the authors know a lot about the history of related events, but the focus jumps around such that I struggled to pull out the key points, or find a clear line of thought. The bright spots are the stories sprinkled throughout.

The second half of the book (Parts 2 and 3) is a fairly straightforward description of the "Ten Functions of a State" that they define. It's all very sensible, although I wish there was more talk of "how to get there from here," more examples of how to actually put it into place.

I kept wishing for focused chapters on specific countries, or even situations, that would take the ideas from the book and apply them, rather than a few paragraphs here and there.

By sheer coincidence, I started reading this book at the same time as the book "The Waxman Report: How Congress Really Works" by Henry Waxman. I found that book to be an amazing read. It is one gripping story after another, with just the right amount of commentary and structure around it to give perspective. I couldn't put it down--read it in a few days, and am still talking about what I learned.

The ideas underneath this book are important and brilliant. The way it's written just didn't work for me, and I suspect for a broad audience.... If these ideas were presented differently, for instance as a set of stories (like Waxman did), this would be riveting.

I hope the authors take another crack at this in a different format because the ideas are important--perhaps a different publisher?

If you care about international development, this is worth looking at--the ideas are very good. Read more ›