Sonja Grimm - The Political Invention of Fragile States: The Power of Ideas

The Political Invention of Fragile States

This book investigates the emergence, the dissemination and the reception of the notion of state fragility. It analyses the process of conceptualisation, examining how the fragile states concept was framed by policy makers to describe reality in accordance with their priorities in the fields of development and security. Contributors investigate the instrumental use of the state fragility label in the legitimisation of Western policy interventions in countries facing violence and profound poverty. They also emphasise the agency of actors on the receiving end, describing how the elites and governments in so-called fragile states have incorporated and reinterpreted the concept to fit their own political agendas. A first set of articles examines the role played by the World Bank, the OECD , the European Union and the G7+ in the transnational diffusion of the concept, which is understood as a critical element in the new discourse on international aid and security. A second set of papers employs three case studies (Sudan, Indonesia and Uganda) to explore the processes of appropriation, reinterpretation and the strategic use of the fragile state concept.

This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly .

Sonja Grimm is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, University of Konstanz, Germany. She publishes on democratization in post-conflict societies and democracy promotion and has co-edited special issues of Democratization on War and Democratization (2008) and Do All Good Things Go Together? Conflicting Objectives in Democracy Promotion (2012). More about her can be found at [www.sonja-grimm.eu].

Nicolas Lemay-Hbert is a Senior Lecturer in the International Development Department, University of Birmingham, UK . He is the co-editor of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding (with Florian Kuhn). His most recent book is Semantics of Statebuilding: Language, Meanings and Sovereignty (2014; co-edited with N. Onuf, V. Rakic, and P. Bojanic).

Olivier Nay is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Paris 1 Panthon Sorbonne, France. He is the Vice-president of the French Association of Political Science and the Chair of the Political Science section at the National Academic Council. He specialises on the reform of international organizations, bureaucratic change and the transnational diffusion of policy ideas. Please see [univ-paris1.academia.edu/OlivierNay].

Thirdworlds

Edited by Shahid Qadir, University of London

THIRDWORLDS will focus on the political economy, development and cultures of those parts of the world that have experienced the most political, social, and economic upheaval, and which have faced the greatest challenges of the postcolonial world under globalisation: poverty, displacement and diaspora, environmental degradation, human and civil rights abuses, war, hunger, and disease.

THIRDWORLDS serves as a signifier of oppositional emerging economies and cultures ranging from Africa, Asia, Latin America, Middle East, and even those Souths within a larger perceived North, such as the U.S. South and Mediterranean Europe. The study of these otherwise disparate and discontinuous areas, known collectively as the Global South, demonstrates that as globalisation pervades the planet, the south, as a synonym for subalterity, also transcends geographical and ideological frontiers.

Terrorism and the Politics of Naming

Edited by Michael Bhatia

Reconstructing Post-Saddam Iraq

Edited by Sultan Barakat

From Nation-Building to State-Building

Edited by Mark T. Berger

Connecting Cultures

Edited by Emma Bainbridge

The Politics of Rights

Dilemmas for feminist praxis

Edited by Andrea Cornwall and Maxine Molyneux

The Long War Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States

Edited by Mark T. Berger and Douglas A. Borer

Market-led Agrarian Reform

Edited by Saturnino M. Borras, Jr.

After the Third World?

Edited by Mark T. Berger

Developmental and Cultural Nationalisms

Edited by Radhika Desai

Globalisation and Migration

New issues, new politics

Edited by Ronaldo Munck

Domestic and International Perspectives on Kyrgyzstans Tulip Revolution

Motives, mobilizations and meanings

Edited by Sarah Cummings

War and Revolution in the Caucasus

Georgia Ablaze

Edited by Stephen F. Jones

War, Peace and Progress in the 21 st Century

Development, Violence and Insecurities

Edited by Mark T. Berger and Heloise Weber

Renewing International Labour Studies

Edited by Marcus Taylor

Youth in the Former Soviet South

Everyday Lives between Experimentation and Regulation

Edited by Stefan B. Kirmse

Political Civility in the Middle East

Edited by Frdric Volpi

The Transformation of Tajikistan

Sources of Statehood

Edited by John Heathershaw

Movement, Power and Place in Central Asia and Beyond

Contested Trajectories

Edited by Madeleine Reeves

People Power in an Era of Global Crisis

Rebellion, Resistance and Liberation

Edited by Barry K. Gills and Kevin Gray

EU Strategies on Governance Reform

Between Development and State-building

Edited by Wil Hout

Identity, Inequity and Inequality in India and China

Governing Difference

Edited by Ravinder Kaur and Ayo Wahlberg

The Personal and the Professional in Aid Work

Edited by Anne-Meike Fechter

Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance

Edited by Kevin Gray and Craig N. Murphy

The Millennium Development Goals: Challenges, Prospects and Opportunities

Edited by Nana Poku

Development Perspectives from the Antipodes

Edited by Susanne Schech

Health, Drugs and Healing in Central Asia

Edited by Alisher Latypov

The Global Politics of Impairment and Disability

Processes and Embodiments

Edited by Karen Soldatic and Helen Meekosha

Negotiating Well-being in Central Asia

Edited by David W. Montgomery

New Actors and Alliances in Development

Edited by Lisa Ann Richey and Stefano Ponte

The Political Invention of Fragile States

The Power of Ideas

Edited by Sonja Grimm, Nicolas Lemay-Hbert and Olivier Nay

Global Land Grabs

History, Theory and Method

Edited by Marc Edelman, Carlos Oya and Saturnino M. Borras Jr.

The Afghan Conundrum: intervention, statebuilding and resistance

Edited by Jonathan Goodhand and Mark Desra

The Political Invention of Fragile States
The Power of Ideas

Edited by

Sonja Grimm, Nicolas Lemay-Hbert
and Olivier Nay

First published 2015

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4 RN , UK

and by Routledge

711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Taylor & Francis

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.