Troubled Regions and Failing States: The Clustering and Contagion of Armed ConflictKristian Berg Harpviken Is the phenomenon of state failure better understood through a focus on the regional context? To what extent may studies of regional security benefit from a focus on the capacities and vulnerabilities of the states involved? These are the questions addressed in this volume of "Comparative Social Research". Substantially, this special issue operates at the intersection of the larger debates on state failure and on regional (in-) security, relating to various perspectives within each of these. State failure, manifesting itself in the inability of a state to maintain its monopoly of violence, has become a widespread phenomenon in several regions of the world. While the weakness of the institutions of the state in question is an obvious dimension of state failure, there is also an important international dimension. In many of these cases, conflicts are interwoven and violence spills across borders. |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abkhazia actors Afghan Afghanistan African Standby Force African Union analysis Arab areas argued armed conflict border Buzan Cambridge capacity CEWARN challenges Chechnya chieftaincies civil Coˆte d’Ivoire colour revolutions complex concept context cooperation corruption countries country’s cross-border diamonds domestic dynamics early warning ECOMOG economic ECOWAS effect elites Eritrea Ethiopia ethnic European external failed failure Georgia global groups Harpviken hegemon IGAD India institutions International Crisis Group Iran Iraq Kyrgyzstan leaders levels Liberia Middle East military neighbouring networks non-state operations Pakistan peace and security peacekeeping perspective political processes RCFs rebel refugees regime regional conflict formations regional security relations relationship Research resource curse role Russian SAARC SADC Security Council Sierra Leone social Somali South Asia South Ossetia sovereignty Soviet Standby Force state-building state’s statehood strategies structures Studies Sudan territory threat transnational United Nations University Press violence violent conflict Wæver weak West Africa