allAfrica.com: Zimbabwe: Is the Country a Failed State? Unmasking the Failed States Index (Page 1 of 2)

THE Fund for Peace's 'Failed States Index' puts Zimbabwe at Number 4â--quite a high and embarrassing ranking by any standard. Different criteria were used to rank states and one of those criteria was "Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline" where Zimbabwe fared the worst.

Zimbabwe also fared pretty miserably on the following: Chronic and Sustained Human Flight, Uneven Economic Development, Progressive Deterioration of Public Services.

In contrast, Zimbabwe did fairly less miserably under the following criteria: Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia, Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State, Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights, Security Apparatus Operates as a "State Within a State", and Rise of Factionalized Elites.

Although the overall classification was 'high' â--at Number 4 below Sudan, Iraq and Somaliaâ--a few conclusions can be drawn from this classification.

What is immediately apparent is that Zimbabwe is classified as a failed state because of the state of the economy; something that the US has a direct input in. All the indicators where Zimbabwe fared badly had to do with the state of the economy: viz, Chronic and Sustained Human Flight, Uneven Economic Development, Progressive Deterioration of Public Services.

In essence this means that Zimbabwe is not a classic case of a failed state, as many critics would want to believe.

Interestingly, the classic definition of state failure is completely divorced from these parameters.

What is State Failure?

State failure is a complex phenomenon; but there are some widely shared tenets that indicate cases of state failure. Foreign Policy, a United States Think Tank and an 'authority' on state failure research, describes a failed state as one with, "rampant corruption, predatory elites who have long monopolized power, an absence of the rule of law, and severe ethnic or religious divisions."

This definition is significant in many ways.

Firstly, it excludes economic parameters and indicators and secondly, some countries that are considered success stories; i.e. not failed states have these characteristics.

Even if we were to consider an alternative definition of a failed state as having a high, "vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal deterioration," there are many problems presented. Certain pertinent questions have to be asked. For instance, what are some of the triggers of that vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal deterioration; and what about the role of external players? Would you say that Iraq is a failed state?

The problem with rankings predicated on a scoring system is that they reduce value judgments, which are inherently prone to bias anyway, to numbers, to quantification of the state of nations. Accounting bias is also not considered in such analyses thus reducing the quantification of the state of a nation to a pointless abstraction.

In any case, the results are not scientific, but are value judgments. I would argue that quantification of value judgments in order to create a comparative scientific ranking is fundamentally a waste of time.

The fact that Iraq and Afghanistan are considered failures; yet their governments have never had the chance to rule themselves, make these quantifications not only pointless, but also useless. Which state failed in this instance? A state that has never been a state, in the classic sense? Or is the occupying state, or power, that is failing?

Comparing Kenya and Zimbabwe

The choices of the terms being used to grade these states are quite obstructive and not useful. For instance who decides, and on what basis, if a state has 'borderline instability'? A country like Kenya in October 2007, for example, had a ranking of 8.4 compared to Zimbabwe's 9.7; yet in that same year it was more dangerous to live in Kenya, than in Zimbabwe. This assumption is made using the classic definition that a failed state has a high "vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal deterioration." Kenya's vulnerability was tested at the general election of 2007, where 300 people died in pre-election violence and a further 1,000 plus people died and 304,000 were displaced in post-election crisis, according to the Red Cross.

So Kenya definitely had a higher vulnerability; and probably still has. Yet it is ranked at Number 31 against Zimbabwe's Number 4 ranking.

Even if the alternative definition was adopted, that a failed state is one where there is "rampant corruption, predatory elites who have long monopolized power, an absence of the rule of law, and severe ethnic or religious divisions," the differences in Zimbabwe and Kenya are still inexplicable.

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