States Under Stress

Examines why 'failed' or 'fragile states' don't actually disappear, focusing on Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq to explore this resilience.

States torn by violent conflicts such as civil wars may survive rather than collapse and disappear. The history of Lebanon from the civil war, Syria since 2011, and Iraq after the 2003 invasion explains why disintegration may be balanced by resilience. The volume questions assumptions about 'failed states' and states as they are commonly defined.Unlike conventional narratives of 'state failure' and its conceptual avatars, the volume analyses the remains of states whose populations had been torn apart by prolonged and violent conflicts and whose rulers lost the monopoly over the means of coercion and the capacity to implement public policies. Focusing on Lebanon since the civil war of the 1970s and 80s, Syria since the repression of the 'Arab spring' in 2011, and Iraq since the 1991 and 2003 wars, it provides a systematic explanation of the continuous, if precarious, survival of these states which draws on international recognition, access to resources, institutional arrangements, and societal ties alongside societal cleavages. In the process, States under Stress defends a definition of the state based on claims to statehood.