Abstract
The end of the Cold War, the rise of globalization, and failed governance have all contributed to a weakening of political authority in much of the developing world. Already described as being “weak”1 and, in some cases, “quasi,”2 many Third World states have experienced dramatic declines in their administrative capacity and societal legitimacy. J. Forrest has described this process as one of “state inversion” whereby “the state grows increasingly irrelevant for society … culminating at its most severe levels in the disintegration of the central government.”3 But, what happens when a state is unable to maintain any semblance of a regime of compliance or, more seriously, collapses? Much of the literature tends to write about such processes in cataclysmic terms as if, without a functioning state, societies descend into some kind of chaos. This interpretation is, perhaps, best exemplified by Robert Kaplan’s phrase “the coming anarchy” in which he plots the explosion of societal anger throughout much of the developing world brought about by deteriorating social and environmental conditions.4 At its worst, Allen writes of the emergence of a “new violence” characterized by quantitative increases in civilian victims, a ubiquity of social violence, and a dramatic rise in interpersonal violence—in short, the emergence of a polity and society characterized by extreme insecurity where violence has become the norm.5
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Notes
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© 2004 Paul Kingston and Ian Spears
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Kingston, P. (2004). Introduction: States-Within-States: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives. In: Kingston, P., Spears, I.S. (eds) States-Within-States. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403981011_1
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