Answers to the Future – Fragile States

,

FIW Bonn Event Series – A Changing World

Answers to the Future – Fragile States

2018-12-10 FIW (no Gabriel)

Under considerations of recent shifts in international peacekeeping missions underlying policies, their applicability and effects of deployed means for state building endeavours on fragile states ability and long-term development to become more stable ought to be scrutinized. Is the concept nation state reconcilable with different concepts of order in other countries and regions? How can they be established without in the process compromising those democratic values that it tries to produce? Experts weight in as part of FIW Bonn’s 5th edition of ‘A Changing World’ event series.

 

Speakers

  • Prof. Dr. Conard Schetter, Director of Research, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC)
  • Thomas Brillisauer, Officer, former military attaché in Central and West Africa
  • Martha Gutierrez, Head of the Governance, Crisis Management and Construction Division, GIZ

Moderator

 

Defining Fragile States

Since 2005 think tank Fund for Peace assesses vulnerability to conflict or collapse of all sovereign states’ with membership in the United Nations where there is enough data available for analysis – the Fragile States Index (formerly the Failed States Index). Two third of all states German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) is working at are fragile states by that definition.

Concepts of Order

Under considerations of the Nation State being a 19th century European-grown idea, the question arises, if this idea is at all international applicable to all states. The European/ Western concept ‘nation state’ is by design just one model for or concept of order that by definition contests and prohibits the establishment of other models of governance. Also, realizing nation states in Europe has been a bloody and at points in itself undemocratic process. Nonetheless, a nation state is the most democratic and just order-producing form of order and governance that we know of.

Underlying the nation state’s law and order-bringing mechanisms are appropriate social and physical built environment state infrastructures. In the first instance, they are what enables state building and establishment of a nation state’s functions and organs and should be descriptive of a resilient state, i.e. non-fragile state, which is not included in Fund for Peace’s Fragile State Index – the index only measures recent outcomes which are, thus, not indicative of their longevity and the future prospects of the state’s situation – and is one of its points of critique. Once a nation state is established, the social and physical built infrastructure recursively produce or allow maintenance of desirable conditions due to systemic least resistance force-fit or best fit mechanisms, respectively.

In order to not violate nation state’s underlying democratic principles during installment of those fundamental state structures, i.e. during the state building process, in a thus far as fragile identified state, securing state and provincial government support and making them an integral part of decision-making and planning activities is fundamental. By the same token, state building cannot be influenced by nor consider incorporating undemocratic interests in its functions and bodies.

For working with fragile states, this implies starting cooperation with und building up on state structures that already adopted or are open for a democratic state building approach. In case of German development agency GIZ, the German Federal Government makes the political decision with which local and national state institutions and NGOs to cooperate.

Scrutinizing Military Interventions

The political state building process in fragile states is often paralleled by German armed forces’ peacekeeping operation under German Federal Government’s guidelines on Preventing Crises, Resolving Conflicts and Building Peace. According to Martha Guiterrez, improvement potential still rests in synchronizing German Fed Gov’s guidelines and military actions with the work of on-site NGOs that are federal governmental controlled too.

Since a premise for partners for German armed forces’ peacekeeping assignments abroad is that they can be state military only, the nation state building-quality of military interventions as a form of fragile states-targeted development cooperation corresponds to said quality of the state government itself. In comparison to non-state military bound organizations like GIZ, in case that the most-democratic group is not legitimated, i.e. in power, German military’s work can be compromised since cooperation with more democratic but non-state (military) actors is not possible. This can result in critical considered cooperations between German military and state military, forfeiting cooperating with more democratic-motivated, nation state building-interested partners. In that context, German Federal Government’s factual interest in intervening in fragile states should be scrutinized.

Policy of Peace or Policy of Interest

Can Military Peace-Keeping even do Peace?

In itself, Germany’s explicitly proclaimed peacekeeping mission can be seen as pursuing a policy of peace. Their selectivity regarding which countries to intervene in, foreign economic aggressions and arms export politics, however, impart a negative connotation to their peacekeeping missions. German Federal Government’s guidelines for peacekeeping appropriating “peacekeeping” as a means of protecting vested interests that don’t parallel interests of peace-keeping object a policy of peace and can rather quickly transform those guidelines into a means for and resemble a policy of interests keeping.

Fighting for Peace

Thomas Brillisauer, former military attaché in Central and West Africa, delivers military’s viewpoint and, building on the premise that German military during peacekeeping missions is only cooperating with state military, explains that their policy of supporting state structures by military means enables states to defend themselves against other non-state aggressors. Assuming that Germany will only deploy a military peacekeeping mission to support state building in states where the most democratic party is in power, Germany’s interests align with factual peace-keeping in that country.

Furthermore, Thomas Brillisauer adds that in certain regions, such as Congo, state’s fragility has progressed to the point where safeguarding state building and sustaining peace is no longer possible. In his eyes the only option remaining is regaining order and peace by eliminating the source of terror and state building-disruption first.

Shifting Paradigms

Fighting sources of terror instead of focusing on building up existent democratic state structures is a shift that international peace politics have undergone recently and, according to Prof. Dr. Conrad Schelter, portray a wrong understanding of state building and engender selection of unsustainable means for stabilizing fragile states.

The goal of sustainable state building and the way to long-term effective change is to protect and support burgeoning state-internal democratic endeavours until they are able to sustain themselves, and, if necessary, provide follow-up assistance afterwards. Without internal buy-in and action, effects of external support, like curbing anti-democratic/ -nation state tendencies and structures, will ultimately vain, according to Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter and supported by scientific evidence.

In line with military, partly

Consequently, German Fed Gov’s military intervention and peacekeeping mission by its choice of means opposes a policy of peace and reasonable and effective state building approach. Thomas Brillisauer, former military attaché, however, highlights the irreplaceable institutional position and role of state military that often is an misguided internal source of terror and aggressor in fragile states itself. Yet, when transformed into peacekeepers, military can act as a strong and trusted state-internal institution and partner for democratic state building endeavours. German Fed Gov’s military peacekeeping mission tries to engender this shift in external perception and internal behaviour by having its own military act as a role model in leadership and interaction with civil society, as well as by actively educating state military on those concerns.

Other means for starting from within and drawing on ready for change, thus far non-institutionalized informal governance structures and actors can be supporting grassroots movements, women empowerment and gender equality initiatives by means of improved coordination and cooperation between state-controlled and non-state-controlled foreign development agencies like GIZ, German Fed Gov military as part of its peacekeeping mission and local governance structures under a common peacekeeping and nation state building mandate. Focusing not on fighting the “old” and “bad”, where certainly always something bigger and “worse” will emerge after having fought the initial target, but on building the “new” and “better”, i.e. more democratic, would reverse recent developments in international peace politics and improve its reasonableness and effectiveness.

 

Related Posts