Since 1914 the number of nations (fifty-five nations in 1914) has increased with the creation of nations after the First and the Second World War. After the independence of many countries in Asia, Africa and Oceania, and after the breakup of the Soviet Union, 192 nations were recognized until 2002(8). It is to notice that Southern Sudan has become the 193rd nation in 2011.
All these nations are delimited by borders inside which they have to provide political goods to their people. Human security is the most important one in the hierarchy of political goods. Indeed, the nations have to provide a sustainable security inside their borders. This public security has to make safe the people against the external and domestic threats in order to maintain the national order and social structure. It is sure that people can defend by their own means when they are in the private sphere but it becomes more difficult when they deal with external threats coming from the public sphere9. The nation provides therefore a system that enables to resolve the problems of the inhabitants without the intervention of weapons. The possibility of a sustainable security enables the delivery of other political goods.
The Fund for peace gives us a well-done definition of the notion of sustainable security: “It refers to the capacity of a society to solve its own problems peacefully without an external administrative or military presence. It helps to define the mission, the success criteria, the desired end state, and an exit or transition strategy, which hands over authority and control of a peace operation to intermediary agencies, such as the UN, or preferably to local leaders”(10). The sustainable security may be measured by standards called the core five state institutions by the Fund for Peace. The five key institutions are(11):
Table 1.1 Core five state institutions
Source: The Fund for Peace, Dr. Pauline H. Baker, The Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), 2006, http://www.fundforpeace.org
As said before, when a sustainable security is reached, other political goods can be delivered. The free participation of citizens in the political life represents another political good. The nation-states have also to provide other public goods that enable a well-structured state(12):
– Medical and health care
– Education
– Public transports and infrastructures
– The arteries of commerce: a money, a banking system, a fiscal system
– The promotion of civil society
– The methods of regulating the sharing of the environmental commons
It is important to complete the definition of the State with the principle of sovereignty. This principle enables the recognition of a state by the others and the right of decision-making that excludes the interference of external authorities in the process of decision-making(13).
This principle of sovereignty includes rules defined by the State and must be respected by the State itself and the citizens. However, the non respect of those rules may place the State in a situation of failed state.
Across these dimensions, sates can be classified as strong, weak or failed. A state is defined strong when it succeeds well in all the categories of political goods(14). What about weak and failed states?
8 Robert I. Rotberg, State failure and state weakness in a time of terror, Brookings Institution Press, 2003, 354 pages
9 Robert I. Rotberg, State failure and state weakness in a time of terror, Brookings Institution Press, 2003, 354 pages
10 The Fund for Peace, Dr. Pauline H. Baker, The Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), 2006, http://www.fundforpeace.org
11 The Fund for Peace, Dr. Pauline H. Baker, The Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), 2006, http://www.fundforpeace.org
12 Robert I. Rotberg, The New Nature of Nation-State Failure,Washington Quarterly, XXV, 2002.
13 Robert I. Rotberg, The New Nature of Nation-State Failure,Washington Quarterly, XXV, 2002.
14 Robert I. Rotberg, The New Nature of Nation-State Failure,Washington Quarterly, XXV, 2002.