Historicising representations of 'failed states': Beyond the cold-war annexation of the social sciences?

TLDR

The article traces how the social sciences were annexed by Cold War hegemonic ambitions, shaping post‑World War II representations of post‑colonial states and critiquing the construction of the “Third World.” It investigates how Cold War‑era conceptions of post‑colonial states persist today and proposes a historicised alternative that re‑examines state‑civil society relations through political‑economic and security lenses. The study employs a historicised analytical framework that reframes state‑civil society antagonisms by integrating political‑economic and critical security perspectives. The analysis shows that contemporary portrayals of post‑colonial states continue to emphasize deficiency or failure, yet historicisation reveals new critical pathways for understanding security and envisioning alternative world orders.

Abstract

This article examines the rise of various representations of postcolonial states to highlight how thinking and practice that arose and prevailed during the Cold War still persists in the present ostensibly post-cold war era. After initially outlining the historical construction of the social sciences, it is shown how the annexation of the social sciences evolved in the early post-World War II and cold-war era as an adjunct of the world hegemonic pretensions of the USA. A critique is then developed of various representations of post-colonial states that arose in the making of the 'Third World' during the cold-war annexation of the social sciences. Yet such practices still persist in the present, as evidenced by more contemporary representations of post-colonial states commonly revolving around elements of deficiency or failure, eg 'quasi-states', 'weak states', 'failed states' or 'rogue states'. A more historicised consideration of post-colonial statehood, that recasts conceptions of state-civil society antagonisms in terms of an appreciation of political economy and critical security concerns, offers an alternative to these representations of 'failed states'. By historicising various representations of 'failed states' it becomes possible to open up critical ways of thinking about the political economy of security and to consider alternative futures in world order.