Pakistan not a Failed State - Dissertation Example

The government of a failed state is unable to enforce law and order and is incapable to meet the public needs such as health, education, etc. A state fails when it does tick all those six boxes. Six elements are assumed natural to the problems. For instance, a country like Pakistan cannot govern because people are closely connected with tribal and ethnic diversity where it leads automatically to state failure. Critically, we can see indicators put forward by organizations and how one indicator is better than the other is.

Failed state index lists out indicators and then proposes solutions such as aid to certain groups and that is taking a snapshot. However, recently, they have replaced the word ‘failed state’ with ‘fragile state’ 2 because of the critique over the last few years. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attack, security became a key concern for policymakers following civil war countries like Somalia and Afghanistan. They posed a great threat to the world’s security systems.

Somalia maintained top spot on the failed state list and has witnessed many years of lawlessness, chaos, radical movements, piracy, low economic growth, infant mortality, and high humanitarian crises. In the last five years, Somalia has been continuously occupying the top position on the map of the failed state index. Crucially, there is a lack of consensus between academics while defining the notion of the failed states. Sue Pleming’s definition of state failure is “weak state as one lacking the capacity to establish and maintain political institutions, to secure their populations from violent conflict and control their territories.

”3 However, Washington based Brooking Institution identified four elements involved in state failure, which are ‘economic, security, political and social welfare’4. Similarly, the political scientists Robert Rotberg and William Zartman are leading authorities on the subject of the failed state and they define state failure as a situation “when the basic functions of the state are no longer performed.”