Defense and Security Studies Commons^™

The Right Side Of The Coin: Focus On The Human Rights Of People, Not The Failure Of States, Brooke Ackerly

Human Rights & Human Welfare

US policy toward failed states should focus on strengthening civil society and social movements so that people are better able to hold their leaders accountable.

The language of “failed states” disassociates foreign policy from international dialogue about human rights. Instead, “failed states” is a contemporary sound bite that connotes a lack of sovereignty, suggesting that intervention would not violate national sovereignty because in a failed state, there is none. Of course, we could have a similar cynicism about the use of human rights concerns to justify invasion. Certainly, states have tried to choose when to reference international human rights norms …

Immobilizing Conceptual Debates, Jonas Claes

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In “Think Again: Failed States,” James Traub argues that “state failure” is a failed concept. Prioritizing efforts to prevent or address state fragility, weakness, or failure may seem impractical given the conceptual breadth of this systemic challenge. Like globalization, human security, or climate change, state failure contains so many aspects that it becomes analytically useless. But the need to rethink this garbage-can concept—everything can be thrown in—does not keep us from addressing the litany of well-understood challenges subsumed within.

Conflict Resolution Agenda: Approaching Its Expiration Date, Jonas Claes

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Conflict resolution scholars and policy-makers have traditionally prioritized research and policy measures dealing with political violence, treating criminal violence as a contextual factor in their analysis or as a subordinate policy concern. One may wonder why the value of a casualty differs depending on whether the fatal blow was caused by a tank, a gang knife, or even a typhoon. The prioritization of political violence over criminal violence seems morally unjustified considering that the killing rates in Guatemala and El Salvador are higher now than during the civil wars that ended in the 1990s. Despite similarities in the causes, manifestations, …