Part 2- How to Identify Failing Nation States

In the previous part of this series, I wrote about the main and defining characteristics of a modern nation state and how they differ from every other previous form of large scale human organization- from kingdoms and empires to city states. To quickly reiterate the main points, nation states are a very recent form of human organization with the earliest appearing in Western Europe during first half of the 19th century. The modern nation state is an even more recent development and has existed only since the end of WW2 in 1945. It is also worth noting that the major defining characteristics of modern nation states, from a large and pervasive bureaucracy to top-down forced implementation of manufactured ethnic and linguistic homogeneity are not conducive to its long-term stability. It does not help that even the somewhat successful ones cannot help constantly dabbling in the personal lives of their citizens in addition to becoming instruments of the rich to exploit everyone else- if that is not already the case.

Having said that- there are ways to distinguish between the still fairly successful, obvious failures those who could go either way. As mentioned in the previous part, an inability of the government (elected or otherwise) to maintain laws, rules and order over the entirety of their territory is one of the easiest way to identify failed states or those moving in that direction. While it many seem harsh to say, most South and Central American countries (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia etc) are some of the best examples of failed nation states- on this point and many others. Note that it is possible for a country to briefly go in the direction of a failed states and turn back- as Russia did during the 1990s. However chronic and worsening dysfunction in this area is not easily reversible and is one of the main markers of failed states. Now, let us talk about other markers of failed states.

2] The inability of government to maintain existing infrastructure projects or build new ones is another important characteristic of failed nation states. This is especially apparent in some parts of the world such as Latin America, where one can observe the neglected state of many infrastructure projects built during the immediate post-WW2 era- with Brazil and Argentina being prime examples. Notably, this decay is not seen in the few small pockets of the country where its affluent classes reside. For example- some parts of the Sao Paulo metropolitan area (in Brazil) look and feel like a south European country, while many other parts look like the poor areas in any generic Latin American country. Contrast this to a large city in South-East Asia with similar income levels such as Kuala Lumpur metro area which had far better public infrastructure in addition to being much safer and orderly. And yes, I am aware that Sao Paulo greater metro area has about three times the population of Kuala Lumpur metro area. However their densities are similar.

This pattern holds for other large cities in that region such as Bangkok and Jakarta. My point is the somewhat well-off large cities in South-East Asia are far more functional than their equivalents in Latin America. This becomes even harder to ignore once you start comparing cities in Latin America to their equivalents in China, let alone Japan or South Korea. Once again, Russia is an example of a country which was on the path to failure in this respect during the 1980s and 1990s- but was able to turn itself around and build new infrastructure and restore older projects starting in the early 2000s. My point is the ability to maintain and build new infrastructure is a good marker to separate failed and failing states from the ones who are still successful. So where do supposedly “developed” countries such as the USA or UK currently lie on this scale.

Well.. while both countries were once on the forefront of building such projects, it is now clear that infrastructure in many parts of both countries is in steep decline. This decline might not especially obvious if you live and work in the affluent areas of large cities in both countries- but becomes much harder to ignore once you step outside such areas. To make matters more interesting, even many supposedly affluent metro areas in USA such as New York, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia have seriously decaying infrastructure- and yes, I am aware that cities in Eastern half of USA are older than those in its Western half. But perhaps most worrying is the general direction of this change. It is hard to ignore that the infrastructure in cities and towns of all sizes in both countries has been going down for the past four decades- but especially the past twenty years. While it is more obvious in UK and some parts of USA- very few parts in those countries have not been affected.

3] Another less obvious, but relevant, characteristic of failed or failing nation states is that their ruling class and elites are beholden to, or identify with, other nations or trans-national organizations. This is especially obvious in Latin American countries where the ruling class see themselves as somehow more racially pure and “whiter” than the general population. It is no secret, especially to those living in such countries, that their elites actively identify with European countries or USA rather than their own people. Once again, South-East Asian countries offer an interesting counter example where their elites strongly identify with their own people and do not look up towards western countries as their moral and spiritual superiors. Russia also provides an interesting example in that its elites used to identify with West, especially in the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s- but then gradually turned away from the West. It is notable that this shift coincided with decline of Russia in the 1980s and 1990s and then its rebirth from the mid 2000s onwards.

So where do countries such as India or Pakistan stand on this scale? Once again it is no secret that many of the elites in both countries have an undeserved worshipful view of the West. We can partially blame this on the colonial past of both countries, but that is only a partial answer since countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia etc were also under European colonial rule during the 19th and early 20th century- and their ruling class and elites have a far less flattering view of the West. While the desire of Indian and Pakistani ruling class to worship the West has certainly gone down in recent decades, it is still a part of their personality with unfortunate effects on their decision making skills. This is, for example, why the system in India would rather spend a lot of money on products made in “phoren” countries than build their own manufacturing base. It is also one of the main reasons why India had such poor economic growth for many decades after independence. Once you start comparing India with China, the disastrous effects of this unfortunate mindset become even more obvious.

In the next part of this series, I hope to talk about two more characteristics of failed states which are best tackled in a new post- namely, persistent systemic structural dysfunction in the government and institutions and the overall direction of change- with examples.

What do you think? Comments?