Publications

Forum Europe-Latin America

Captive Institutions

Flacso Chile

What do Chileans think of the Armed Forces since the death of Augusto Pinochet? This is one of the questions which is tackled by “Captive Institutions"

 

 

Transnational Terrorism, Security and the Rule of Law

The Transnational Terrorism, Security and the Rule of Law (TTSRL) project is aimed at framing the current nature of the threat of terrorism as it exists within the EU, and at generating insight into the various response options to terrorism that are available to European governments.

More information

Send page Print

Fragile states / Working Paper

Failing States or Failed States? The role of development models: collected works

08/02/2006 By Martin Doornbos, Silvia Roque, Susan Woodward

In recent years the notion and phenomenon of ‘failing’ states - states incapable to fulfil the basic tasks of providing security for their populace -, has been rapidly drawing attention.

The incidence has been on the increase especially among countries of the South, and particularly, though not exclusively, in Africa.

Among the explanations offered, fragility of state structures, lack of capacity and ‘bad’ governance have been recurrent ingredients put forward, though each of these inevitably begs further queries: why are they fragile to begin with, why is there this lack of capacity, and so forth.


Download the full version of this publication, available in English (868 kB)

Keywords

Development cooperation Failed states Fragile state

Bio author: Martin Doornbos

Martin Doornbos is also Visiting Professor of Development Studies at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda. He has extensively researched on state-society dynamics in Africa (especially in the Horn and in Uganda) and India, with a particular focus on the state-identity nexus.

Bio author: Silvia Roque

BA in International Relations from the School of Economics of the University of Coimbra. She currently participates in the project "Peacebuilding Processes and State Failure Strategies: lessons learned from the former Portuguese colonies" (Peace Studies Group, University of Coimbra) financed by the Ford Foundation and directed by Jose Manuel Pureza. The main objective of this project is to analyse the impact of the donor's cooperation politics on the consolidation or weakening of the statebuilding processes of three of the Portuguese former colonies: Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau.

Bio author: Susan Woodward

Professor of Political Science, The Graduate Center, City University of New York. A specialist on the Balkans, her current research focuses on transitions from war to peace, state failure, and post-war state-building.