Transcript Land Policies and Violent Conflict: Towards Addressing the

Policy Priorities for Tackling
State Fragility
International Parliamentary Conference on
Peacebuilding: Tackling State Fragility
Monday 1 February 2010
James Putzel
Crisis States Research Centre
London School of Economics
Photo: © J Putzel 2005
Defining State Fragility
• OECD (2007):
A state is fragile when “state structures lack
political will and/or capacity to provide the basic
functions needed for poverty reduction,
development and to safeguard the security and
human rights of their populations”
• World Bank (2009):
“low-income countries or territories with no
Country Policy and Institutional Assessment
(CPIA) score or a CPIA score of 3.2 or less”.
Assessing these definitions
• Recognition of “fragile states” was positive
in that it allowed aid to be channelled to
poorly performing states that need it most.
• Problematic aspects of these definitions:
- equates fragility with poverty (what about
Tanzania? Half the countries of SSA that
have not experienced civil war.)
- confuses resilience with development
Alternative indicators of state
resilience
1) Ability of state to maintain basic security
* protect population from physical violence
including that which might come from the state
itself
2) Ability of state to raise revenue
* no rival is collecting significant taxation
3) Ability of state organisations to ensure that
state institutions (rules and norms) take
precedence over rival institutions
* rival rules (religious, identity, region, etc) are
subordinate to the state’s rules
Resilience
≠
Development
• Many states that achieve basic security,
hegemony over taxation and basic legitimacy of
state rules remain poor
(Tanzania; Zambia; Malawi)
The deals done to win security and stability may
block the leap to more dynamic development
• Development itself may be a source of insecurity
and instability
What determines the trajectory of a
state?
Political Organisation
• Resilience: political organisation is:
- inclusive of elites: ensuring elite “buy in” to
state rules
- seen as legitimate in population: general
acceptance
(Tanzania or Zambia)
• Development: political organisation is:
- organised around a developmental programme
- capable of disciplined action vis a vis elites and
social groups
(Malaysia or Rwanda)
What role for Parliaments and their
Members in Tackling Fragility?
• Shaping the way politics is organised
- Not about eliminating patronage: all
parliamentarians need to look after constituents
• Shaping the way the state is organised:
- Not about attempting to implement the whole
“good governance” agenda: standards of probity
practiced in the OECD achieved at very high
levels of per capita income
Shaping the way politics is
organised
• Appeal to constituents as citizens rather than appealing
to ethnicity, identity, language or religion (identity politics
promotes fragility)
• Building alliances that protect minority rights even when
privileging those previously excluded;
(the demographics of democracy can promote fragility)
• Using position within government to build a disciplined
political party based on a programme for development
rather than organising behind personalities of the day.
(the most resilient states have been organised through
political parties)
Shaping the way the state is
organised
• Parliaments need to build effective executive
authority around key dimensions of government
(cannot do “all good things” at once) therefore
privileging:
- Capacity to supervise security: military and police
- Capacity to review and decide on budgets: scrutinise
foreign aid
- Capacity to contribute to economic planning:
knowledge of basic productive sectors in the economy
- Capacity to design implementable law;