Fragile State Discourse in International Relations: Reasons and Approaches

The process of de-colonization which gained speed with the end of 2. World War caused a rapid increase in the number of states. In a short time like 20 years after 1945, most of the African colonial states declared independence. Colonial powers changed the traditional way of governing and social structure in colonial states, yet they faced struggles to build up western-style instituions. Therefore, the demands of colonial states related to gaining their independence were rejected on the excuse that they are not ready for independence. Due to power shift from Europe to USA and Soviet Union, egalitarianism and self-determination which marked the second half of the 20. century, colonies started to gain independence. Mushrooming post-colonial states, most of them, were not able to response these rapid changes. They had the deficiencies of basic functions like protection of its citizens, providing welfare and represantion which are expected to perform by all modern states. These problems were not brought to agenda because of various reasons during the Cold War. States that can not or did not perform these basic functions, affects badly not only their societies but also international society of which states and people composed with the end of bipolar system. In the literature, it became necessary to handle such states which were given diversified adjactives: Failed states, failing states, fragile states, quasi-states, collapsed states ... The notion of ‘‘failed state’’ is widely used and popular, but in this study which aims to make a literature survey about the phenomenon, was prefered to use ‘‘fragile state’’ and ‘‘collapsed state’’ notions in respect to explain different phases of the phenomenon. In first section of the study, failed state notion and its derivatives are explained and then its critics are expressed. After that why fragile state and collapsed state notions were preferred to use is explained, and then aforementioned states characteristics are described. In the last section, the importance of fragile state matter and the reasons of why they are fragile are analyzed.