Failed states

Are you familiar with the Failed States Index?

It's a rather interesting breakdown of different countries, with 12 factors taken into account to see how "failed" or "sustainable" they are:

Mounting Demographic Pressures
Massive Movement of Refugees or Internally Displaced Persons creating Complex Humanitarian Emergencies
Legacy of Vengeance-Seeking Group Grievance or Group Paranoia
Chronic and Sustained Human Flight
Uneven Economic Development along Group Lines
Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline
Criminalization and/or Delegitimization of the State
Progressive Deterioration of Public Services
Suspension or Arbitrary Application of the Rule of Law and Widespread Violation of Human Rights
Security Apparatus Operates as a "State Within a State"
Rise of Factionalized Elites
Intervention of Other States or External Political Actors

The top five failed states are Somalia, Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The top five sustainable states are Norway, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Ireland.

The United States and the United Kingdom are lumped over in the "moderate" section, along with Germany, France, and Singapore.

Considering the political, economic and human rights issues in all of these listed countries, does the index make sense to you or do you feel they're giving more weight to some factors than is really deserved? Is there a particular political bias present?

Actually is does seem fair to me. The failed states are unstable states where few people can really consider themselves reasonably safe or plan well for the future. It is really sad. I wonder where Afghanistan falls on there chart? I would expect very low. I see #6.

I am surprised Iceland is still so high. Their economy is gone but I guess overall they are still stable and sparsely populated.

Ireland is angling up to go from the top to the bottom of that index. :(

Thanks for posting that; I had never actually seen a definition of "failed state" before, although it is a term I've read and used freely myself (generally in reference to Somalia or Sudan). The list of characteristics seems fairly sound, although I might remove the references to economic decline and deterioration of public services. I don't think those two problems necessarily equate to a "failed state", as a reasonably sound, democratic political apparatus could still exist, though it might be threatened if the decline was sufficiently severe. Also, I'm not sure that some of those failed states ever had much in the way of public services or a functioning economy to begin with. Something can't decline if it never existed in the first place.

But that's just quibbling.

Like Hatschepsut, I'd heard references to it before but I hadn't looked up how exactly they were indexed. That's interesting. It does match up fairly well with how I would have ranked those countries. I note Afghanistan is just below Iraq in failure.

As for why Iceland is so high, I'm betting it's because their primary "competition" for that particular spot is Japan, which has had more than its own share of troubles recently.

I would say there is a left-wing bias in that selection of criteria. As an example "Progressive Deterioration of Public Services" could count heavily against right wing thinking which is to cut the public sector, whereas left wing thinking is to increase the size of the left wing sector, deterioration being that less money equals worse services.

I would love to know what they declare "Sharp and/or Severe Economic Decline" to mean given the recent economic troubles of a lot of western countries.

Public services include clean drinking water, sewage, roads, and basic education. How the fuck can it be a left wing bias to want to provide things like that? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Get that factory job, kid! Provide for the family, just like the good old days of the Industrial Revolution! Got your arm cut off by machinery? Guess you don't have to worry about it again and you'll learn to be faster with your remaining arm!

Quote:

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Originally posted by hobbler

Public services include clean drinking water, sewage, roads, and basic education. How the fuck can it be a left wing bias to want to provide things like that? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Get that factory job, kid! Provide for the family, just like the good old days of the Industrial Revolution! Got your arm cut off by machinery? Guess you don't have to worry about it again and you'll learn to be faster with your remaining arm!

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and that's a complete misrepresentation.

Both types of government provide public services. It's a question of how much. Consider that in several countries, the government does not supply water, electric or gas. Does that count more or less against a government if it is carried out by the private sector. Does a nationalised industry count as more of a public service than one which is privately owned.

All governments should try to provide some public services. Take education as an example, a right leaning government would have no problems with parents paying for their own kids tuition, a left leaning government would insist all education is carried out by the public sector. However, you could say that one government is providing a bigger public service because it educates a greater proportion of the children, regardless of whether it is more effective or not.

Quote:

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Originally posted by hobbler

Public services include clean drinking water, sewage, roads, and basic education. How the fuck can it be a left wing bias to want to provide things like that? Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! Get that factory job, kid! Provide for the family, just like the good old days of the Industrial Revolution! Got your arm cut off by machinery? Guess you don't have to worry about it again and you'll learn to be faster with your remaining arm!

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and that's a complete misrepresentation.

Both types of government provide public services. It's a question of how much. Consider that in several countries, the government does not supply water, electric or gas. Does that count more or less against a government if it is carried out by the private sector. Does a nationalised industry count as more of a public service than one which is privately owned.

All governments should try to provide some public services. Take education as an example, a right leaning government would have no problems with parents paying for their own kids tuition, a left leaning government would insist all education is carried out by the public sector. However, you could say that one government is providing a bigger public service because it educates a greater proportion of the children, regardless of whether it is more effective or not.

"Progressive Deterioration of Public Services"

To me, basic public services are what I listed above. Since you seem to be unable to grasp them and insist on adding, I'll re-list them along with explanations.

1) Water - Basic water sanitation and purification to reduce diseases.
2) Sewage - Allows indoor plumbing in urban environments and increases sanitation.
3) Roads - Basic transportation. Breakdown occurs when the government is unable to maintain standards they have set.

Water processing and sewage are often easily interchanged, as they're extremely similar. Re-processing waste water eases the environmental impact of high populations, reducing the long term cost of water.

4) Basic education - The ability of the government to ensure basic literacy, through public or private means.

The first three are important, as they are too large and complex to be successfully implemented by private companies. There's simply too high of a cost, with too low of a rate of return. Education is a toss up, but the government's ability to provide it should be a sign of the ability to function as a "state".

Sorry if your right wing fantasy involves a return to the good old days of cholera. The only place cholera outbreaks usually occur are in the top "failed state" nations in the list.

I think you are missing the point, so I'll say it slowly for you.

It's not whether the services are provided, it's how much money a state pours into providing these services.

BTW in the UK, water is provided by private services, not the public sector. How does that factor for the UK on the failed state index against a country which has public owned utilities?

I'll leave you in your left-wing fantasy where the state pays for everything until it runs out of other people's money :p

Whether the state is covering those services or the private sector is, the people who actually pay for it will always be the same: the people. In a well-functioning state, the the government is an extension of the people. They're the ones who support it financially and keep it in power, either passively by not rebelling against it or actively by voting for it. If a country goes bankrupt providing public services, then there are greater issues involved than those services. A people should be able to support themselves and maintain standards of living that include roads and waste disposal.

If there's a left-wing bias in the index, then I suppose a Stephen Colbert quote is in order: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."