State collapse

State collapse is a sudden dissolution of a sovereign state. It is often used to describe extreme situations in which state institutions dissolve rapidly. When a new regime moves in, often led by the military, civil society typically fails to rally around the central government, and societal actors fend for themselves at the local level. Neighboring states interfere politically, sometimes harboring dissidents within their borders, and the informal economy becomes dominant, operating beyond the control of the state and further undermining potential reconstruction. While the definitions of "failed state" and "fragile state" have been contested for being "too broad and too vague", foreign policy experts such as Charles T. Call have advocated focusing on extreme cases of "collapsed states" instead, defined as "countries whose state apparatus ceases to exist for a period of several months". According to Call, between 1995 and 2005, the main examples of collapsed states included Somalia, which had a sustained collapse from 1990 to 2004; the Soviet Union in 1991; Yugoslavia in 1992; and possibly Afghanistan from 1992 to 1995. Recent scholarship has focused on identifying measurable dimensions of state capacity, building on the institutionalist approach associated with Max Weber. Daniel Lambach, Eva Johais, and Markus Bayer have thus defined state collapse as the inability to make and enforce binding rules; maintain a monopoly on violence; and collect taxes. Using this framework, Lambach et al. identified 17 collapsed states between 1960 and 2007. The majority of cases were in sub-Saharan Africa, involving armed rebellions in countries including Chad, Uganda, Liberia, Somalia, Angola, Zaire, Guinea-Bissau, and Sierra Leone, plus Congo-Kinshasa, which collapsed following decolonization from Belgium. The dissolution of the Soviet Union led to state collapse in Georgia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Tajikistan.