The Political Invention of Fragile States - 9781138801530

Taylor & Francis

This book investigates the emergence, the dissemination and the reception of the notion of \u2018state fragility\u2019. It analyses the process of conceptualisation, examining how the \u2018fragile states\u2019 concept was framed by policy makers to describe reality in accordance with their priorities in the fields of development and security. Contributors investigate the instrumental use of the \u2018state fragility\u2019 label in the legitimisation of Western policy interventions in countries facing violence and profound poverty. They also emphasise the agency of actors \u2018on the receiving end\u2019, describing how the elites and governments in so-called \u2018fragile states\u2019 have incorporated and reinterpreted the concept to fit their own political agendas. A first set of articles examines the role played by the World Bank, the OECD, the European Union and the G7+ in the transnational diffusion of the concept, which is understood as a critical element in the new discourse .