Naming the Failed State: a Politics of Judgment

Any endeavour to reveal the ‘difficult truths’ underlying failed states’ policies should not shy away from political analysis. Aiming to repoliticize the stakes involved, we need to ask ourselves the classic questions: Who owns the failed state? How is ‘state failure’ established and assigned? What do the various indexes and ‘fragility indicators’ tell us about who is considered eligible for failure? What kinds of us-versus-them divides are implied by these attempts to measure state failure? How are these indicators politically functional? How is the framing of ‘failure’ casting blame and accountability? Which agents confer to themselves the right of judgment? And, last but not least, how is the ‘failed state’ part of wider systemic accountabilities?