Event reports
1. Program
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Opening session and welcome speeches
’’Oussama Safa’’
Director of the Lebanese Center for Policy
Studies, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Martin Beck’’
Resident Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Amman, Jordan
Session I: The Weakness of Security in Iraq
‘’Dr. Yasar Qatarneh’’
President of the Third Way Institute
Jordan
‘’Oussama Safa’’
Director of the Lebanese Center for Policy
Studies, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Abderrahim El-Manar Esslimi’’
Professor of the Mohammed V University
Morocco
Session II: The Widespread Corruption in Yemen
Dr. Adel Mugahed Al-Sharagabi
Associate Professor of Sana’a
University, Yemen
‘’Dr. Khalil Gebara’’
Economic Researcher, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Yasar Qatarneh ‘’
President of the Third Way Institute, Jordan
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
Session III: Authoritarianism in Morocco
‘’Dr. Abderrahim El-Manar Esslimi’’
Professor of the Mohammed V University
Morocco
‘’Dr. Yehya Hakim’’
Treasurer of The Lebanese Transparency
Association, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Shawket Echtay’’
Professor of the Institute of Social Sciences
Lebanese University, Lebanon
Session IV: State Building in Lebanon
‘’Dr. Shawket Echtay’’
Professor of the Institute of Social Sciences
Lebanese University, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Yehya Hakim’’
Treasurer of The Lebanese Transparency
Association, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Yasar Qatarneh’’
President of the Third Way Institute
Jordan
‘’Dr. Adel Mugahed Al-Sharagabi’’
Associate Professor of Sana’a
University, Yemen
Session V: State Failure as a Security Challenge on the National and Global Level
‘’Dr. Carlo Masala’’
Professor for International Politics, University
of the German Federal Armed Forces
Munich, Germany
General discussion of findings
‘’Zeina El-Helou’’
Deputy Director of the Lebanese Center for
Policy Studies, Lebanon
‘’Dr. Martin Beck’’
Resident Representative of the Konrad-
Adenauer-Stiftung, Amman, Jordan
2. Objective
Since the emergence of the failed states
concept in the 1990s the subject of failing
states has gained in importance.
More and more countries, especially in post
colonial Africa and Latin America, loose attributes
of sovereign statehood or show
deficits in the ambit of security and welfare.
failed states have reached the stage of inability
to perform nation state tasks such as
border protection, security of individual
freedoms and property and the exercise of
power. This model of failed states is applicable
in the Arab World where it helps understanding
conflicts as in Yemen to explain
why states decay and which effects this has
on society.
During the roundtable discussions on February
17th and 18th, 2010, organized by KAS
Amman and the Lebanese Center for Policy
Studies (LCPS), high ranking experts form
the science, economic and political sector
shed light on experiences of Lebanon and
selected Arab countries in state failure and
state building process. They discussed the
reasons and possible means and measures
of state failure and building exemplifying
the cases of Lebanon, Yemen, Morocco and
Iraq. In this context they also focused on
the definition of weak, failed and collapsed
states to give an overall idea of the different
aspects of the failed states theory.
The nature of state failure varies from place
to place, sometimes dramatically. State
failure or collapse depends on a nation's
geographical, physical, historical, and political
circumstances. In a collapsed state the
political and public order has broken down
whereas the leadership in a failed state remains
in power due to its control of the coercive
powers, the armed forces, police, security
and intelligence.
The roundtable discussions witnessed the
participation of highly experienced Arab
speakers from Jordan, Morocco, Yemen and
Lebanon. Each speaker presented a working
paper describing the situation in their countries.
In addition Dr. Masala presented an
analysis from the perspective of international
relations.
Mr. Oussama Safa, Director of the Lebanese
Center for Policy Studies, and Dr.
Martin Beck, Resident Representative of
the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung opened the
first of five workshop sessions. Dr. Beck
highlighted the two main features which
characterize state failure, i.e. the loss of the
legitimate use of physical power over its
territory and the inability of the state to
provide reasonable public services. Comparative
studies on failed states are in this
context useful to elucidate the causes and
impacts of collapsing political systems.
First Session
Dr. Qatarneh gave a speech on the local
community situation in Iraq. He focused on
how to rebuild Iraq through increasing security
and stability underlined the importance
of setting a fair allocation system of oil resources
among different communities and
regions. According to Dr. Qatarneh Iraq
has failed to develop sustainable strategies
to deal with existent threats to the political
community such as the ethno-sectarian
conflicts. He then emphasized that though
the new government in Iraq grants a wide
array of political liberties, it is still unable to
offer a security structure to allow the citizen
to practice these liberties. Moreover, the
fractured Iraqi military has failed to deal
decisively with transnational terrorist organizations
or local militias that seek to undermine
the democratization process in
Iraq.
Dr. Qatarneh concluded that Iraq can only
resolve its state building dilemma through a
national reconciliation initiative that would
bring in all Iraq’s ethno-sectarian parties to
a power sharing agreement.
In the following Dr. Manar Esslimi discussed
the paper of Dr. Qatarneh with the
audience and came to the conclusion that
that Iraq, despite all the challenges it is currently
facing it still presents some positive
aspects such as the substantive improvement
in the security situation. Dr. Esslimi
considered at the end that it is impossible to
build a state under the occupation situation
in Iraq.
Second Session
Dr. Adel Al Sharagaby introduced
Yemen’s case by presenting a paper on
widespread corruption in Yemen. He considered
Yemen a failed state because of tribal
political system which leads to the emergence
of conflicting sects and the destabilization
of the political order.
Dr. Adel Al-Sharagabi urged the government
to take measures in order to found
more public schools with a high education
system and skilled teachers.
Dr. Khalil Gebara stressed the importance
of the rent seeking concept in connection
with the failed states theory. He argued that
it is difficult to have a discussion on failed
states while at the same time avoid delving
into the theoretical concept of the state.
Corruption weakens the state institutions
and accelerates the polarization of the society.
Therefore one can define corruption as
a primitive version of rent-seeking. In this
context rent-seeking is understood as a different
source of income when the state restricts
the operations of the market and
creates different forms of rents over which
people start to compete. This competition
can be either legal by lobbying or illegal
through bribes.
Third Session
Dr. Esslimi presented a paper on authoritarianism
in Morocco. He explained that the
Moroccan political system is undergoing, for
the past ten years, a great development
and that the country has witnessed several
patterns of progress. Though Morocco is currently trying to dismantle some aspects
of the old conservative tradition in various
spheres, such as the family code and the
freedom of expression, it appears that the
aim of the reform projects is still not clear
enough. The state building process is still
facing difficulties at the institutional level
and at the level of wealth distribution capabilities.
Dr. Hakim discussed the paper presented
by Dr. Esslimi. He then debated some
questions on combating corruption, the
regulations governing human organs in the
public sector, the financing of political parties,
the independence and transparency of
the judiciary and the role of civil society in
promoting human development. Afterwards
he answered to questions that were raised
by the audience with regards to the possibility
of democratization of the Moroccan
political system.
Fourth Session
In the final roundtable Dr. Shawkat Eshtay
tackled the situation of Lebanon as a
case of State failure in various aspects, including
failure of the security sector, widespread
corruption and shortcomings of the
political system. He gave a historical overview
of Lebanon’s formation, its independence
and the civil war. He stated that the
existence of multiple religious groups such
as Islam and Christianity as well as the existence
of many political parties and the existence
of discrimination among them cause
the division of Lebanon into conflicting
groups. He pointed also out to the external
factors as foreign interference that affects
the stability of the country.
The paper of Dr. Eshtay was discussed by
Dr. Hakim and Dr. Qatarneh who concluded
that the Lebanese should act more
future-oriented and should be less affected
by the past.
Dr. Qatarneh highlighted then the concept
of threat perception and stated that Arab
countries should identify the sources of
threat in order to enhance the state building
process.
Fifth Session
Dr. Carlo Masala delivered a speech on
state failure as a security challenge on the
national and global level. He said that in the
light of the 9/11 attacks state failure and
failed states are considered the breeding
ground for violent extremism and extremist
groups. Hence the political and academic
interest in the concept of state failure
should focus more intensively on the reasons
and impacts of collapsing political systems
and examine the possibilities to preventing
states from failing. He also stated
that special attention has been generated to
quantify state failure. The Failed State Index
(FSI) reveals that 132 out of 194 analysed
countries are already classified as
failed states and 96 states are on their way
to fail. Dr. Malasa stated that the Index
and its classification of failed states or
states in the process of failing is so broad
that it includes every type of failure, ranging
from states where the central government
is unable to maintain the monopoly on
the use of force to countries where governments
have no budget to keep infrastructure
running. Such a broad range of state
failure definition is problematic for research
purposes. He suggested using instead the
classical notion of state – population, state
territory and state authority – according to
the international law. If governments are
not able to exert their authority over their
populations within the boundaries of their
territories they are indeed in the process of
failing.
4. Conclusion
Over 40 high ranking participants including
employees from public and private sectors,
distinguished public figures and scholars,
politicians, and religious leaders, attended
the roundtable discussion. The participants
helped creating a spirit of interaction and a
meaningful dialogue. The participants were
engaged actively in the discussions due to
their diverse cultural and ideological background.
The conference outcome was highly
important because of the excellent contribution
of the different speakers. Many participants
asked for future joint activities of KAS
and LCPS. Thanks to the comparative approach
the experts could promote a better
understanding of the failed state and state
building concepts. The comparison of the
four case studies showed the differences in
the state failure process in the countries
such as Lebanon and Yemen. The event
provided the participants with a qualified
policy consulting on state failure and state
building processes in Yemen, Lebanon Iraq
and Morocco.