Persistent State Weakness in the Global Age

Persistent State Weakness in the Global Age addresses the question of why state weakness in the global era persists. It debunks a common assumption that state weakness is a stop-gap on the path to state failure and state collapse. Informed by a globalization perspective the book shows how state weakness is frequently self-reproducing and functional. The interplay of global actors policies and norms is analyzed from the standpoint of their internalization in a weak state through transnational networks. Contributors examine the reproduction of partial and discriminatory rule at the heart of persistent state weakness drawing on a wide geographical range of case studies including the Middle East the Balkans the post-Soviet states and sub-Saharan Africa. The study of state-weakening dynamics related to institutional incapacity colonial and war legacies legitimacy gaps economic informality democratization and state-building provides an insight into durability and resilience of weak states in the global age.