bueger bethke 2011 networking the failed state

8/12/2019 Bueger Bethke 2011 Networking the Failed State

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Actor-networking the failed state An inquiry into the life of concepts

Christian Bueger

1

and Felix Bethke

2

Globally circulated concepts, such as the concept of failed states connect academia and global

politics. Indeed, such concepts are jointly produced by academics and other actors. Little

attention has been spent to study these concepts as objects. In this article we develop a

framework for studying the circulation of concepts in relying on guidelines from actor-network

theory. We suggest studying concepts as effects of relations between different actors building theactor-network the concept relies on. We offer a detailed study of the concept of failed states,

show how various actors have started to circulate it, how actors transform because of their

participation and investigate the persistent struggles to define and homogenize the concept.

Hence, this is an article about the life of the failed state, the discipline of international relations

and its relations to other actors, and an introduction of the actor-network theory toolbox to the

sociology of international relations.

Keywords: failed state; sociology of international relations; actor-network theory; bibliometry;

concept formation; sociology of science

Concepts, academia and global politics3

The vocabulary of contemporary global politics is permeated by concepts that lack precise

definition and are ambiguous in meaning at best. Concepts such as global governance, human

security, humanitarian intervention and failed states are ambiguous and highly contested.

Such globally circulated concepts are, moreover not only part of political vocabulary, they are

also part of scientific discourse. A concept, such as the failed state, which we scrutinize in this

article, has not only transformed the vocabulary of security politics, it is also a concept used as

framework for scholarly analysis. Yet, for a majority of scholars these concepts are not of interest

as objectsof study. As given by the case of the failed states, but also other, the concepts are used

as analytical frameworks through which academics order and make sense of the political world.The observation of the use of such concepts in science and in politics, not only places further

doubt on how deep the gap between the theory and the practice of global politics actually is

(Bueger and Villumsen 2007), it raises the question of how scholars and their disciplines partakein the composition and circulation of these concepts. In this contribution we argue for the need to

take these concepts and their life as objects of research and to investigate how they are created,

circulated, institutionalized.

International Relations (IR) have been weak in understanding the dynamic dialogue and co-

production of concepts shared by academics and policymakers. Contemporary research tends to

fall into the trap of grasping the relation between academics and policymakers as a one way

street. The primary focus is on the dissemination of concepts from research into policy. Others

overemphasize the strength of the boundary between science and politics, or tend to sideline the

1Christian Bueger is a Leverhulme Fellow at the Greenwich Maritime Institute, University of Greenwich.

Email: [email protected]; http://bueger.info2Felix Bethke is a Research associate at the University of Greifswald. Email: [email protected]

3A previous version of this paper was presented at the 51

stAnnual Convention of the International Studies

Association; we like to thank all participants for their suggestions. For helpful comments and suggestions

on previous versions we are especially grateful to Ole Waever, Patrick Jackson, David McCourt and Frank

Gadinger, and the participants in a research seminar at the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF),

Duisburg.


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many practical aspects that shape the circulation of concepts among researchers and

policymakers.

This paper draws on ideas from Science Studies, notably Actor-Network Theory, to develop an

approach that promises to be capable of more fully grasping the different patterns of interactioninvolved in the life of concepts. We study the life of one distinct concept, the concept of the

failed state. The concept has significantly altered contemporary security policy, yet also has

changed the contours of academic disciplines, such as the discipline of international relations(IR). In relying on text analysis and bibliometry, we reconstruct the history of the life of the

failed state. We show how the creation and durability of this concept is a consequence of the

involvement of multiple actors, including policy makers, international organizations,

development agencies, think tank staff, as well as academics from various disciplines. We argue

that these actors wove a multifaceted actor-network around the concept. We outline how this

(conceptual) system of associations is stabilized and how participation in it transforms the

identities of the actors. The history of the failed state, however, is not necessarily a harmonious

one. Rather can it be interpreted as an ongoing and indeed persisting struggle over who is

authorized to speak about the failed state. Actors struggle over homogenizing the scope, aim andmeaning of the concept. Some actors have been very successful in defining and homogenizing

the concept, however, our analysis reveals, that none of them has achieved a position of central

spokesperson for the concept and its network.

In summary, our discussion revolves around three core concerns. This is an article about the

failed state, about the discipline of IR and about the tool box of actor-network theory. Our first

concern is an empirical. We want to understand the concept of the failed state, how the concept

was brought into being and how it is kept alive. Studying this concept has initially the intention

to raise reflexivity among the failed state practitioners, that is, those academic and other actors

that participate in its circulation. Since the failed state is one instance of a global concept ourconcern is secondly with understanding the interaction of IR with other actors. How do IR and

other actors produce such a concept? For answering such a question current approaches are

insufficient. In consequence our third concern is with introducing the tool box of actor-networktheory to the sociology of international relations. As a toolbox that has hardly reached IR so far,

actor-network theory is however not only useful to study global concepts. It holds promises to

spur future research in different directions and to enrich the repertoire of the sociology of

international relations.

Our article is structured as follows. Part one starts in briefly reviewing the literature studying the

dialogue between academia and policymaking. Criticizing the current spectrum, we proceed in

introducing an alternative analytical framework. Drawing on ideas from actor-network theory we

develop a framework for reconstructing the history of concepts which better enables us to

understand the relations between different academic and non-academic actors. We introduce

three core concepts. We use the concept of enrolment as a way of speaking about the

participation of actors in the failed state network; the concept of translation as a mean to

grasping the participation of actors in the network, and the concept of obligatory passage pointsto understanding the struggle and homogenization moves of actors within the network. Together

these concepts add up to an actor-network theory inspired research strategy for understanding the

life of concepts. Part two studies the history of the failed state by tracing the multiple elements

involved in making the concept. We address how the actors participating in the circulation are

transformed in the process, with a special emphasis on the instances of the World Bank, foreign

policymakers and IR. We continue by discussing the question of power in the network in

discussing several moves of achieving control over the network. We conclude with a summary ofthe relevance of our framework for furthering our understanding of the science-politics relation

and the functionality of concepts in contemporary global order.


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Social science in global politics: Three approaches

Since the mid-1990s there has been a growing interest in theorizing the contributions of socialscience to international relations and global politics.4Earlier political science debates concerned

the national level, reflecting on the wave of social engineering of the 1970s and theorizing the

relation between technocracy and democracy domestically.5 Together with the spread of the

globalization discourse and the growth of international organizations, however, there is a nascent

interest in also theorizing the international, transnational and global domains from such a

perspective. At least three different lines of reasoning can be identified.

The majority of IR theorists have concentrated on researching the causal impact of scientific

knowledge on the formulation of nation state interests or on the formation of international

organizations and regimes. Analytical frameworks such as the epistemic community approach

suggest that a measurable impact requires the constitution of a community comprised of scientists

and policymakers which share a knowledge claim and advocate for its relevance in policymaking

processes.6Research in this fashion is strong in showing how a knowledge claim is disseminatedand integrated into policy agendas by the activities of a community. Yet it is weak in showing

how the relevant knowledge and its respective communities are actually formed.7Frameworks of

this character are useful if a widely shared knowledge claim exists and if a visible community

can be observed. They remain, however, limited as they only project a small part of the

academic-political dialogue, notably fading out the manufacturing of knowledge as well as cases

in which knowledge remains contested. Yet, concepts such as failed states are ambiguous and

not agreed upon knowledge claims. Although such concepts are widely employed no immediate

community of believers can be identified. Hence, this line of theorizing is less productive for

studying concepts of the type of the failed state.A different, second, line of thinking are works in a sociology of science tradition. These

investigate knowledge production structures and practices. In the discipline of IR such research

has become increasingly widespread.8 Research in this direction is strong in showing whichstructures and practices lead to what kind of knowledge and in investigating how political

interests blend into academic practice. Two latent problems however are making these

frameworks less useful for understanding the social science-policymaking relation:9 There is,

firstly, a tendency towards introspection (or even a latent narcissism) in the works of

sociologists of disciplines: scholars tend to engage in looking back on disciplinary

achievements, focus on their immediate own disciplinary context primarily and show little

interest for the role of other disciplines or other actors, knowledge structures or practices (e.g.

think tanks or international organizations). This tendency, secondly, leads scholars to

overemphasize the boundary between the inside and the outside of a discipline. Investigations of

the multiple flows of knowledge, practices, objects and technologies between disciplinary actors

and others are elided, and the attempt is made instead to find internal, disciplinary explanations

for any development that might take place. Moreover, the contingent, blurred and fuzzy character

4See for instance the discussions in Bueger and Gadinger (2007), Bueger and Villumsen (2007), Smith

(2004), Walker (1995).5See, for example, Habermas (1969).

6Cp. Adler and Haas (1992) and Antoniades (2003).

7 Cp. the critique by Lidskog and Sunqvist (2002) and Halfon (2006). Scholars using the notion of

epistemic communities have, however, become increasingly aware of this problem and have aimed to

advance the integration of the dimension of knowledge production.8See for instance Waever and Tickner (2009), Waever (1998) and for good summaries Bell (2009) and

Bueger (2007).9Cp. for this critique the discussion in Bueger (2007).


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of epistemic borders, the aspect exactly highlighted in frameworks such as epistemic

communities, is largely neglected. In consequence scholars employing this line of thinking have

much to say about the structural and organizational patterns of disciplines, but little on why and

how concepts are produced with and travel between different disciplines and otherknowledgeable actors.

Thirdly, researchers relying on poststructualist frameworks conceive of political and academic

vocabulary as part of a latent structure.10

The time span of these investigations is often in terms ofepochs and centuries and in the majority grand panoramas are developed associated with terms

such as post or late modernity. Though less widespread, accounts of this type are useful in

emphasizing the contingent boundaries between science and politics. They focus on identifying

the commonalities between scientific and political vocabularies and the assumptions on which

claims to authoritative knowledge are based. Such accounts are, however, weak in grasping the

contingent, short term transformations that often occur in vocabularies, and in grasping what

actually happens in practice at the diverse sites of the wide spectrum of academia and non-

academia.11 They blend over the many mundane, practical aspects which are part of concept

formation. Hence they are less useful for grasping the life of contemporary concepts and forstudying the transformation of scientific and political practice occurring in shorter time spans and

historical situations, in which new concepts such as the failed state are introduced.

Given this situation, we suggest it is important to identify alternative frameworks better suited to

interrogating global concepts and the interactions that give life to them. A promising candidate

from where to develop a framework for studying the life of global concepts is actor-network

theory.12Actor-network theory is a set of ideas pioneered by Bruno Latour, Michel Callon and

John Law that has achieved prominent status in Science Studies.13

It introduces a relationalist

approach which foregrounds the dynamic relations between scientific and political sites. Insteadof starting from the assumption of well-separated and bounded fields of science and politics or

conceptualizing interaction as a one-way street, scrutiny is on the processes by which knowledge

is composed through relations and how it is eventually manufactured to be factual, true oruniversal. Hence, knowledge and concepts are seen as composed by a system of associations. It is

these associations between actors that give life to a concept. The reach and indeed universality of

a knowledge claim or concept is then heavily dependent on how stable the relations of a network

are. With its emphasis on relations, actor-network theory offers guidelines for studying the

circulation of concepts, as well as for understanding the contentious character of them. Moreover

the focus on associations allows for closer scrutiny on the transformation of actors as they

participate in the circulation of a concept. In what follows we further elaborate on these core

ideas and detail how they lead us to a different research strategy for understanding the life of

concepts.

10E.g. Walker (1995). Cp. the discussion in Bueger and Villumsen (2007: 421-423).11

Cp. for instance the critique raised by Neumann (2002) and Spiegel (2005). Discourse theory is,

however, a broad field and notably those adopting Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffes advancement of

discourse theory develop thinking in similar directions as presented here.12

It goes without saying that also other useful frameworks exist that could be developed in this direction.

See the discussion of approaches of intellectual history in Bell (2009). Instances include Gaspers (2005)

use of symbolic interactionist theory, notably the idea of boundary concepts, to analyze the concept of

human security. Hellmann et al (2007) draw on Begriffsgeschichteto analyze the vocabulary of German

foreign policy. Barnett et al. (2007) argue, discussing the case of the concept of peacebuilding, that

concepts should be analyzed as political symbols.13

On the work of these scholars and the development of ANT cp. among many others Gad and Bruun

Jensen (2009). Scholars that already have relied on ANT in the context of Global Studies include Walters

(2002), Lidskog and Sunqvist (2002), MacKay (2007), Srnicek (2010),or Edwards and Gill (2002).


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The toolbox of actor-network theory

Actor-network theory (hereafter: ANT)14is an approach popularized in science studies since the1980s, and today forms one of the most important lines of research in debates on science and

technology. John Law (2009:142-146) suggests four major origins of what became known as

ANT. 1) Studies of technological inventions which demonstrated the complex web of materialand social relations which made these inventions succeed or fail. 2) Ethnomethodological studies

of academic practices in laboratories, describing what scientists do, how they fabricate facts and

certainty inside laboratories and detailing what kind of social and material infrastructure was

required to stabilize facts and other entities, and allow these to travel beyond the laboratory. 3)

Studies relying on Michael Serres concept of translation describing how different entities were

related and ordered to each other and thereby a whole web of reality was created. 4) As Law

(2009: 145-146) suggests, ANT can also be understood as an empirical version of the

poststructuralism of Michel Foucault or Gilles Deleuze. While these post-structuralists are

interested in webs of epochal dimensions, ANT is interested in the smaller scale.The first generation of ANT studies were studies of scientific laboratories and of technological

inventions. Latour describes early ANT studies as attempts to visit the construction sites

(Latour 2005: 88) in which innovation, new knowledge and new entities where manufactured. As

he continues, within ANT we went backstage; we learned about the skills of practitioners; we

saw innovations come into being; we felt how risky it was; and we witnessed the puzzling merger

of human activities and non-human activities. (Latour 2005: 90). Classical ANT studies include

Latour and Wolgaars (1979) work on the Californian Salk laboratory, Michel Callons (1986b)

study of the failure of establishing the electric vehicle as a main transport device in France,

Latours (1988) study on the success of Pasteur in eliminating Anthrax, Callons (1986a) study ofthe cultivation of scallops at St. Brieu Bay, or Laws (1987) study of the Portugese maritime

empire.

Since the 1990s ANT studies have significantly expanded their empirical focus, to includevarious kinds of organizations and technologies (Law 1994, Czarniawska 2008), health practices

(Mol 2002), financial markets (Callon 1998, McKenzie et al. 2007), or the making of law (Latour

2010). Even entities such as the state have become the objects of ANT studies (Passoth and

Rowland 2010). Attention has also shifted from studying the formation of single, stable actor

networks to studying more fluid, moving forms of webs of associations and to researching

overlap and coordination between different networks and fluid webs (Mol 2010a, Law 2009).

ANT has established itself as a very heterogeneous conglomerate of studies and researchers.

Given its heterogeneity and although the label actor-network theory suggests otherwise, ANT

should not be understood as an established research program, paradigm, or theory. Law

(2009) suggest to understand ANT as a toolkit for telling interesting stories about, and

interfering in, those relations. [] It is a sensibility to the messy practices of relationality and

materiality of the world. Anemarie Mol (2010b:281) proposes that ANT is a loose assemblageof related, shifting, sometimes clashing, notions, sensitivities and concerns. ANT might

however well also change our understanding of what is a theory. As Mol expands (2010a: 262):

For if ANT is a theory, then a theory is something that helps scholars to attune to the

world, to see and hear and feel and taste it. Indeed, to appreciate it. If ANT is a theory, then

14 We here use the signifier ANT although we recognize the problematic character of it. Due to grave

misunderstandings concerning all three terms, actor, net and work, as well as the hyphen, several other

terms have been suggested. These indeed might better grasp the core concerns of the project. Examples

include Actor-Rhizome Ontology, Sociology of Translations, or Cultural Studies of Science (cp. Gad

and Bruun Jensen 2009, Latour 2005).


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a theory is a repository of terms and modes of engaging with the world, a set of contrary

methodological reflexes. These help in getting a sense of what is going on, what deserves

concern or care, anger or love, or simply attention. The strength of ANT is not in its

coherence and predictability, but in what at first sight, or in the eyes of those who like theirtheories to be firm, might seem to be its weakness: its adaptability and sensitivity.

Phrased otherwise, ANT cannot be presented as a coherent theory or perspective. Rather belowwe introduce and discuss three major guidelines or sensitivities which we take from the ANT

toolbox and deem important to appreciate the history of the construction of concepts and the

(academic-nonacademic) interactions that occur in it. We discuss firstly, the principle of

generalized symmetry, secondly, the strategy of looking down and studying up and, thirdly, the

focus on associations and relations by which the world is assembled.

Generalized symmetry and anti-dualism

The principle of generalized symmetry encourages rethinking dualisms and distinctions,

including human and non-human, meaning and materiality, big and small, macro and micro,

social and technical, nature and culture (Law 2009:147). The ANT toolkit can be understood as

a powerful set of devices for leveling divisions usually taken to be foundational (Law 2009:

147). Rather than taking such distinctions as granted, ANT aims to prompt seeing distinctions as

relational effects of actor-networks and to investigate how they came about.

Now this entails initially no less than the rejection of a (given) bifurcation of nature and society

and the idea of a separation of labor in which science speaks in the name of the mysteries of

nature, while politics is in charge for society. The principle has several major theoreticalconsequences such as to give up the notion that the social should be used to explain anything

and to give equal actor status to human and non-human entities (e.g. Latour 2005). While

expanding these social-theoretical dimensions is beyond the realm of this article, the principle ofsymmetry has significance for our argument as it invites us to give equal status to scientists and

other actors, to reject an objectively given boundary between science and other fields of activity

and to refrain from the idea of seeing academia as form of epistemic practice superior to others.

Symmetry understood in this way is a motive that shines through vividly in the majority of ANT

studies. Although focused on scientific innovations, classical ANT studies give equal status to

scientists and other actors. To give one instance, Latours (1988) Pasteur required a host of

different actors to participate in the network to eradicate Anthrax. It required journalists,

politicians, farmers, technicians, veterinarians, but also non-humans, such as domesticated farms,

laboratories, petri-dishes, statistics, blood and transportation systems. Although scientists, such as

Pasteur, are often major protagonists, ANT studies do not want to deliver a sociology of

scientists (Latour 2005:95, emphasis in original), in which the focus is on career pattern, or

disciplinary structures alone. Instead the focus is on how different actors together weave thetextures of the world. With this focus, this eye on collaboration between scientists and other

actors, an ANT perspective differs from the approaches usually taken within the sociology of the

discipline of IR. As discussed above, these revolve around the idea of an internal disciplinary

looking back, rather than investigating the multiple connections, forms of interaction and

dialogue and joint construction projects between IR actors and others.


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Looking down and studying up

A second major sensitivity we take from ANT is the importance of a research strategy that can be

described as looking down and studying up. One of the reasons why ANT is not a coherenttheory is its deeply empirical character. It does not want to distinguish content and form. It does

not want to disentangle theory from empirics, concepts from practice, or description from

intervention. ANT is grounded in empirical case studies, and to rely on its tool box is to translateit into empirical practice.

Instead of a meta-theory or meta-language, Latour (2005:49) suggests that the vocabulary of

ANT is primarily an infra-language, that is, an enabling conceptual infrastructure that makes it

possible to engage in intelligible research, without making apriori assumptions about the shape

of an actor network or the actors interests and identities. It is not assumed that the analyst has

any superior access to realities. The aim is to let the actors under study do the main conceptual

and theoretical work (Latour 2005, Law 2004).

Looking down requires a sense for the mundane, attention to detail, for feeling around, for

seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting of how actors weave relations and connect to each other. It isfrom these detailed and situated descriptions that ANT studies up and abstracts and formulates

more general arguments arguments which however remain deeply anchored in the empirical

case. In the majority ANT studies rely on intensive field work conducted at small scale sites,

such as villages (Callon 1986a), laboratories (Law 1994), cities (Callon 1986b), hospitals (Mol

2002) or courts (Latour 2010). Yet, ANT investigations have neither limited itself to such small

scale in also arguing on the level of nation states (Latour 1988), or even empires (Law 1987). Nor

has field work been the only mean for looking down, mapping and bibliometry (e.g. Callon et al.

1991) have been other methodological devices employed in ANT. Notably if the empirical case

of interest involves multiple sites and involves a transnational or even global scale, thenmethodological alternatives to field work require consideration, since field work is not the only

mean of sensing the mundane and paying attention to detail.

Indeed investigating the circulation of concepts requires us to peer to such alternative methods. Aconcept such as the failed state connects multiple sites across the globe. Yet, it is important not to

operate on a too high level of abstraction and loose the sense for practice, since sensitivity to the

contingency of empirics is one of the core arguments for relying on the ANT toolbox, and a core

strength notably compared to the post-structuralist, discourse theoretical take criticized above.

Relationality and translation

If anti-dualism and empiricism are the first two sensitivities we take from ANT, relationality

is the third. Arguably it is the most important. Relationality is to see the world as hanging

together by relations, connections and associations and to study actors, objects, knowledge,

power and also concepts as effects of these relations.ANT presents us an extended version of semiotics, it can be understood as material semiotics

(Law 2009). In semiotics, words acquire their meaning relationally, through their similarities and

differences from other words. Words form part of a network of words. ANT shifts this

understanding of relationality from language to the rest of the world. Mol (2010a: 247) gives the

telling example of fish: the word fish is not a label that points with an arrow to the

swimming creature itself. Instead, it achieves sense through its contrast with meat, its

association with gills or scales and its evocation of water (Mol 2010a:257). In ANT thisunderstanding is extended. It is not simply the term, but the very phenomenon of fish that is

taken to exist thanks to its relations. A fish depends on, is constituted by, the water it swims in,

the plankton or little fish that it eats, the right temperature and pH, and so on (Mol 2010a:257).


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ANT invites us to study the makeup of such networks in which phenomena such as fish or

technologies or concepts are given content and form through relations. In consequence, a core

question for ANT has been how to describe and understand the formation of such networks and

what makes them durable and stable.One of the concepts ANT has advanced to study relations is translation. Translation initially

means no more than the relation between two elements. A relation or a web of relations is

considered to be stable if such translations are successful. According to Callon (1986:197),

translation postulates the existence of a shared field of meanings, preoccupations, and

interests. [] If it concedes the existence of divergences and irreconcilable differences, it

nevertheless affirms the underlying unity of distinct elements. To translate is to create

convergences and homologies out of particularities.

Translation is a process that binds actors together, it is the process that weaves the shared field.

Yet, translation is both about making equivalent, and about shifting. It is about moving terms

around, about linking and changing them. (Law 2009:144). If actors end up working together itis because their quite different interests have been translated, compromises have been made and

actors with diverse interests have been persuaded that reaching their objectives is best achieved

in working with others. Through translation, actors are being enrolled into the network, they are

given a distinct role. Actor-networks define and distribute roles, and mobilize or invent others to

play those roles. Such roles may be social, political, technical, or bureaucratic in character; the

objects that are mobilized to fill them are also heterogenous and may take the form of people,

organizations, machines, or scientific findings. (Law and Callon 1995: 283). In this sense

translation is also an ordering process.

The concept of translation is not the least crucial as it marks a key difference to moreconventional network theory (e.g. Manuel Castells work). Conventional network theory

assumes that actors have a stable identity before they network and the focus of analysis is on the

intensity of relations rather than its quality. According to the concept of translation, actors are notquite the same from situation to situation (Gad and Bruun Jensen 2009). Rather, they are

transformed in their movement between practices. Actors are found in different yet related

versions, and networks develop through actors transformational interactions (Gaad and Bruun

Jesen 2009).15

Phrased otherwise, through participating, by being enrolled in a network, actor

identities change.

The order created in an actor-network is however temporary precarious; it requires ongoing

ordering and translating work to keep it alive and to give it a stable and eventually enduring

form. Heavy work is required to maintain and keep networks alive. Such maintenance workalthough often routinous will be contingent, since new situations will require re-negotiations,

new compromises and the adjustment of work. ANT, hence, leads us to conceive of networks and

its entities as living and emerging structures. As structures made and re-made in practices of

translation and organization.The most stable networks, notably those that become black boxes as their content and form is

no longer contested, are controlled by some entity of the network. ANT researchers have

introduced the terms of spokespersonship and obligatory passage points to speak about power

and control. Successful networks often lead to one actor representing the whole of the network

towards others. One actor becomes the spokesperson for the network. In the ANT logic such a

spokesperson can be for instance non-human entities to which the whole of the network has been

15In this sense ANT postulates essentially the opposite to network theories, which take actors identities for

granted and investigate relations between them. In ANT relations are what constitutes the actors. For a

discussion of the relation between social network analysis and ANT see Mutzel (2009).


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delegated. While non-human spokespersonship tends to provide more durable networks (Law

2009: 148), spokesperson in principle may also be humans, as was the case for Pasteur.

The concept of obligatory passage points, as introduced by Callon (1986a), suggests that

entities can become crucial to the degree to which the network cannot be easily enacted ortransformed in a meaningful way without taking it into consideration. Obligatory passage points

mediate the relations in an actor-network and define scripts of action for it. They are points that

the relations have to pass through to enact the network as well as to transform it.However, ordering and translation work does not necessarily lead to webs of associations which

are stable or enduring actor-networks and which have established spokespersonship or obligatory

passage point. Translation work is often an ongoing struggle in which some actors enroll, others

resist, counter-strategies and compromises are made, which leads to more fragile textures and a

less orderly web.

In summary, relationality invites us to study and describe ordering moves and translation work.

To investigate how actors order and translate. How they enroll in a web of associations. How

they resist. How they transform through taking a role in a web. How they struggle over the

control of the web. How they aim to establish spokespersonship and obligatory passage points. Itis an invitation to scrutinize how such relations have effects. How they lead to objects or entities

such as knowledge, facts and concepts.

Summary: ANT and the study of the life of concepts

Taking these three sensitivities from ANT leads us to a refined approach for studying the life of

concepts. Initially a concept is an effect of a web of associations. A novel concept is an

innovation brought about by such a web. Understanding the life of the concept is to investigatethe work that goes into weaving this net. To study the actors which conduct this work and are

part of the net. As we will see below, in cases of concepts such as the failed state, actors from the

discipline of IR are part of the story. They collaborate with other actors to bring the concept tolife and to keep it alive.

The material that a network giving life to a concept is made up is mainly texts and actors

producing these texts; and actor reading these texts; and actors adjusting their behavior to these

texts; and devices required to produce these texts and to make them travel. In our study of the

failed state actor-network, we rely on two main methodological devices to grasp translation work,

that is, the enrolment of actors and their transformation, and to understand ordering struggle, that

is efforts to establish spokespersonship and obligatory passage point by attempting to define and

homogenize the meaning of the concept. We use text analysis to understand the movement of

actors. We use bibliometry to grasp the larger picture of relations. While these devices are not the

natural choices for ANT studies, to use them for telling our empirical story, is to follow Mols

(2010:247).advise that the art of using the ANT toolbox is to move to generate, to

transform, to translate. To enrich. And to betray.The intelligibility of our account (or betrayal of ANT) has to be proven in our empirical case in

terms of how it can shed new light on the history of the concept of failed states. In conceptual

terms the ANT toolbox, this precarious infra-language, provides various advantages over the

three approaches currently prevailing in IR. ANT gives us a toolbox to study empirically how IR

collaborates with others in forming webs of associations and actor-networks that brings life to

concepts. ANT allows us to study the intricacies and work that goes into making up these

networks. It allows to go beyond the focus of a neat sociology of the discipline which is pre-ocupied with the boundary of the discipline. In difference to post-structuralist accounts it allows

to study the concrete work that goes into making relations. And in contrast to frameworks such as

epistemic communities it allows us to study the collectives, the actor-networks as fragile


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precarious entitites, which do not necessarily take the form of communities of shared belief. It

forces us to study the work that goes into holding communities together rather than assuming a

cognitive glue.

In what follows we use the case of the failed state to further outline the advantages we see inANT, how it can be useful to understand the life of concepts and to argue that it spurs interesting

questions for a sociology of global politics

Actor-networking the failed state

We advance three different narratives of the life of the concept of the failed state to describe the

web of associations it relies on. In these narratives we utilize the core concepts discussed above:

enrolment, translation, spokespersonship and obligatory passage points. First, we detail how

various entities at different moments in time have become enrolled in the failed states network.

We show how the circulation of the concept was extended and both the concept and the network

transformed. In the next step we advance a second narrative, which centers on the question inhow far enrolment in the network led to a transformation of the involved actors. We take the

instances of three entities in the network, that is, the World Bank, groups of foreign policymakers

and the discipline of IR. We discuss how these actors transformed as part of their participation in

the network. Thirdly, we investigate attempts in the network to establish obligatory passage

points. In sum, we demonstrate how the ANT strategy puts us in the position to grasp the rich set

of relations making a concept prosper. Based on an ANT inspired strategy we are able to achieve

a much more detailed picture of the interactions involved in the processes of inventing concepts,

how concepts extend their reach and actors are transformed in the process.

A story of enrolment

In our first narrative we describe the formation of the failed state network in terms of the actors it

enrolled. We take as an indicator for enrolment that an actor devotes considerable resources to

the failed state, in fabricating an artifact in the network, such as publishing a report, or by

engaging in considerable re-organization work, such as the launch of an initiative or the creation

of an organizational unit devoted to the concept.

We can differentiate between several formation phases. Only loosely mentioned in academia in

the late 1980s (phase one), the concept was extended to numerous disciplines and foreign policy

makers in 1990s (phase two), it was securitized and globalized in the early 2000s (phase three),

and in a contemporary phase (phase four) a double trend of homogenization through

quantification and heterogenization through criticism is observable. In all of these phases,

circulation has intensified and the number of actors enrolled has grown.

In the 1980s we can identify the first traces of circulation. The term failed states was usedfairly loosely at this stage. It was not a distinct concept yet. Africanists employed the term in

reference to the role of the state in economic development (Brett 1986; Bienefeld 1988) and to

describe the political crisis occurring inside states like Chad (Lemarchand 1986). Area Studies,

centrally African Studies, laid the foundation of the failed state concept by problematizing the

distinct features of the post-colonial African state (Rothchild and Chazan 1988). IR scholars

became interested in the problems that states pose which do not neatly fit notions of sovereignty

(Buzan 1983; Migdal 1988). In this context, work that is nowadays seen as seminal (or as apredecessor) for the failed states debate was produced. Scholars such as Robert Jackson and Carl

Rosberg conceptualized weak- and quasi-states and described how states of such a character


11/24

form a larger pattern and are to be seen as instances of a more overarching phenomenon (Jackson

1987; Jackson and Rosberg 1982).As Jackson argues in an article inInternational Organization:

African states are juridical artifacts of a highly accommodating regime of internationallaw and politics which is an expression of a twentieth-century anticolonial ideology of

self determination. (Jackson 1987: 519)

Jacksons arguments were the first moves to jump the scale of the concept from the national, to

the regional (African) one, and indeed also to the global. With the beginning of the 1990s (and

the end of the Cold war), the circulation of the failed state concept was recognizably expanded.

IR scholars were the crucial actors. They identified failed states as a major foreign policy

challenge requiring a distinct (and novel) set of political interventions (Helman and Ratner 1992)

or a at least a change in diplomatic practices (Herbst 1997). This extension of circulation is well

illustrated in a Foreign Affairsarticle by Gerald Helman and Stephen Ratner (1992). The authors

nowadays often interpreted as the inventors of the failed states concept argued in their

contribution titled Saving Failed States:

From Haiti in the Western Hemisphere to the remnants of Yugoslavia in Europe, from

Somalia, Sudan, and Liberia in Africa to Cambodia in Southeast Asia, a disturbing new

phenomenon is emerging: the failed nation-state, utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a

member of the international community. [] As those states descend into violence and

anarchy imperiling their own citizens and threatening their neighborsthrough refugee

flows, political instability, and random warfare it is becoming clear that something must

be done. [] Although alleviating the developing world's suffering has long been a major

task, saving failed states will prove a new--and in many ways different--challenge.(Helman and Ratner 1992: 3, emphasis added)

By arguing that failed states were a new phenomenon requiring new policies, contributions suchas this one turned the failed state into a problem of politics. As (foreign) policymakers

increasingly drew on these arguments (e.g. in US Security Strategy 1997) the reach of the

network was extended. Moreover, the concept became tied to security, rather than to

developmental and economic problems or the theoretical sovereignty puzzle from earlier works.

As indicated in the above quote, failed states were now considered as a threat rather than an

economic or governmental challenge.

In the following different streams of research on the failed state evolved in IR. IR theorists took

up the failed state in a renewed discussion about the core concepts of the discipline, notably

sovereignty.16 Building on the article by Helman and Ratner, a stream of policy oriented IR

research drew on the concept of failed states and discussed how the international community,

the US, or the UN should respond to this apparently growing threat.17

Studies on intra-state

conflict, which rapidly grew in the post Cold War era, discussed the role of the state in intra-stateconflict. International Law picked up the concept in response to the reformation of the

intervention practices by the UN Security Council in the 1990s. Most articles dealt with the legal

issues of UN or US intervention in failed states and possible trusteeship for failed states as

initially proposed by Helman and Ratner (1992).18These different streams of research manifested

themselves in several major research projects, including the so-called State Failure Task Force19

16See e.g. Buzan (1983); Krasner (2001, 2004); Srensen (2001).

17Cp. Clarke and Herbst (1996); Crocker (2003); Dorff (2005); Herbst (1997).

18Cp. Gordon (1995); Simpson (1996); Weiss (1994).

19The project received a huge academic and media attention which culminated in an article in Nature right

after the events of September 11th (Adler 2001).


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(Esty et al. 1998; Esty et al. 1995), the Failed States Project(Rotberg 2003, 2004), and the Crisis

States Research Centre (Crisis States Research Centre 2001). In 1995 William I. Zartman

published the first edited volume solely devoted to the concept (Zartman 1995).

A further extension of the concepts circulation occurred at the end of 2001, when even more anddiverse actors entered the network. While foreign policymakers were already entangled in the

network, this intensified with the relations set up between the concept of failed states and the

practice of terrorism. In other words, the urgency about dealing with international terrorismintensified the circulation of the failed state concept. This new intensity is maybe best illustrated

by the prominence given to the concept in the 2002 US National Security Strategy. As stated

there: America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones(White

House 2002: 1). Failed states are routinously mentioned in the US National Security Strategy

documents starting from 1997 (The White House 1997). Yet, from the 2002 document (The

White House 2002) onwards, the failed state was upgraded to a vital threat to national security.

In a similar fashion, the strategic documents of other major OECD-states refer to the failed

states as a major threat from 2002 onwards (Cabinet Office 2008; European Union 2003;

German Federal Ministry of Defense 2006). Furthermore, several foreign ministries createdspecialized units and strategic documents designed to address state failure (France - Ministry of

Foreign Affairs 2007; UK Prime Ministers Strategy Unit 2005).

The scale of the concept now became even more explicitly global in nature, with the Global War

on Terror emerging as a new major strategic narrative. Ever more than previously, the failed state

was pre-dominantly conceived as a security problem. Failed states were related to the discussion

of threats such as international migration, organized crime and drug trafficking.20In other words,

the concept changed its face. To address it, was now, a strategic and moral imperative.(Rotberg

2002a: 128).

In the new millennium, IOs also became busy developing documents and reports dealing with thefailed states. The World Bank , OECD , IMF, NATO and the United Nations set up working

groups, initiatives and task forces, held conferences and meetings, and published reports and

strategy-papers to address the issue.21Also development agencies entered the network. By 2007 practically all of the major agencies

had established special units and published strategic reports to address the phenomenon.22 The

discipline of development studies basically echoed the issues bi- and multilateral agencies faced

when conducting reconstruction work in failed states and developed concepts and strategies to

address these problems.23

Faced with a growing demand for advice and the considerable amount of efforts and resources

devoted to the issue by IOs, foreign policy makers and development agencies, also a number of

think tanks took up the concept.24

After foreign policy makers and IOs entered the network,

security- as well as development-oriented think tanks considerably extended the textual output on

the concept.25

20E.g. Crocker (2003b); King and Zeng (2001); Krasner (2004); Krasner and Pascual (2005); Lyman and

Morrison (2004); Rotberg (2002, 2003, 2004).21

Numerous further instances could be cited. Carment et al. (2009) provides a detailed overview on the

initiatives by IOs, development agencies, think tanks and foreign policy.22

E.g. AusAID (2005) BMZ (2006, 2007); DFID (2005a, b); USAID (2005a, b).23

Examples include Brett (2008); Francois and Sud (2006); Hanlon (2008); Kaplan (2007); Kraxberger

(2007); and Yannis (2002).24

Examples include Chickering and Haley (2007); Ghani and Lockhart (2008); Ghani et al. (2005); Grono

(2007); Haims et al. (2008); Rice (2002); Rice and Patrick (2008); Weinstein et al. (2004).25

E.g. Chickering and Haley 2007; Ghani and Lockhart 2008; Ghani et al. 2005; Grono 2007; Haims et al.

2008; Rice 2002, 2003; Rice and Patrick 2008; Weinstein et al. 2004.


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In 2011 the contemporary circulation continues to be wide. At least since 2005 a double trend can

be observed. The concept of failed state is increasingly homogenized, stabilized and de-

politicized through practices of quantification and technization. State failure is increasingly

framed in variables, indexed and measured (Fund for Peace 2009; Rice and Patrick 2008) andconflict studies try to explain the cause and consequences of state failure with complex statistical

methods (Chauvet and Collier 2008; Iqbal and Starr 2008; Piazza 2008). Yet, there is also a

growing trend towards increasing heterogenization, contestation and criticism of the concept.Scholars question the ontology of the concept in general (Call 2008; Hameiri 2007; Jones 2008)

and its use for legitimizing military intervention in particular (Bilgin and Morton 2004;

Manjikian 2008).

The process of the extension of the failed state can be well observed with bibliometric methods.26

Figure one illustrates the growth of the network in terms of publications over time. The data

relies on a collection of all academic articles dealing with the concept of failed states27

from the

Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI).28

This gives us data for academic actors.For other actors

we build on a study by Carment et al. (2009), which collected policy publications dealing with

the concept.

Figure 1: Publications on the failed state 1990 2008

Figure one shows the growing intensity of engagement with the concept in 2002 within the

academic sphere and in 2005 in the policy sphere. If we look at the actors that produce thesepublications, we can cluster them into the actor groups of academic scholars, foreign policy

makers, international organizations, national development agencies and think tanks. With the

26The bibliometric analysis was conducted using the bibexcel software developed by Persson (2006).

27Additional information on the search query and articles included in the sample is provided in a data

appendix (ref/hyperlink)28

The Social Sciences Citation Index is an interdisciplinary citation index published by Thomson Reuters.

However, using the SSCI has limitations and biases. It has a strong focus on U.S. scholarship and thus does

not reflect the global academic discourse. Moreover, Social Science scholars are known to publish their

research in books, which are not covered by SSCI. Thus, this data does not present us with a whole picture

and can only be seen as a sample.

0

10

20

30

40

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

year

academic publications

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010year

non-academic publications


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involvement of different actors the failed states network grew and the diverse allies stabilized the

network. Today we are looking at a multifaceted network with diverse actors contributing to the

circulation of the concept.

In summary, in this section we have showed how the failed state was brought to life as aconcept circulating globally through the relations of various actors. Various agencies, which

include academics, international organizations, and policymakers wove a network in which the

failed state could prosper. We approached the life history of the failed state as the ongoingweaving and extension of a network. In the next section we discuss how the interest of agencies

was translated through their participation in the network.

A story of transformation

The concept of translations is used in ANT to grasp the relations of actors with one another. In

their relations, actors create a kind of forum: a central network in which all the actors agree that

the network is worth building and defending. Stable networks are created through the enrolmentof a sufficient body of allies and the translation of their interests in a way that they are willing to

participate in particular modes of thinking and acting which maintain the network. Through

translation divergent interests are kept consistent with the network. Actor-networks are the

consequence of an alignment of otherwise diverse interests. Alignment is dependent upon

enrolment and translation. Hence, we can assume that the interests and identities of the actors,

whose enrolment was described above, have been translated in some way. While we cannot

analyze the translation of all of the actors we discussed above, let us take some instances, both to

substantiate what is meant by translation and to indicate the types of translation work occurring

in the network.An interesting instance of translation is the World Bank. As we argued, the World Bank was

enrolled in the network around 2002. Failed states provided a considerable opportunity for the

World Bank to widen its mandate to also address security issues. With the accession of the WorldBank in the network, the circulation of the failed state was significantly widened to also include

development researchers and practitioners. To circulate the failed state the World Bank created a

new concept that has strong resemblances to the failed state, which aimed to integrate it under a

different header. In 2002 the World Bank launched its Low-Income Countries Under Stress

(LICUS) program to address the problem (World Bank 2002). Such countries were seen as

characterized by very weak policies, institutions, and governance. They posed special

challenges, since aid does not work well in these environments because governments lack the

capacity or inclination to use finance effectively for poverty reduction (World Bank 2002).

The World Bank thus rephrased failed states as a problem of aid effectiveness and of finding

strategies of how donors can respond to the challenges failed states pose. Yet the World Bank

(together with other actors) tied security issues closely with development issues. This, however,

meant that the World Bank was put in a position through its enrolment to say something aboutsecurity, which it was neither mandated nor really capable to do. Other IOs like the OECD and

most notable development agencies took a similar form of translation; faced with the growing

attention being paid to the relations between security and development policies, participating in

the circulation of the failed state concept provided the opportunity for a change in organizational

identity to also address issues of security.

Regarding the translation of the concept by foreign policymakers, the most significant point is

their securitization of the concept (Lambach 2006). For foreign policymakers the failed statesnetwork was worth building, because the War on Terrorhad to be fought in the context of or

even against certain states. Thus calling these states failed and relating them to terrorism,

organized crime and drug trafficking, would make armed intervention much easier to justify to


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the public. For instance, only three days after the September 2001 terrorist attacks, United

Kingdoms Foreign Secretary Jack Straw stated:

(I)t is no longer tolerable that any states should harbour or give succour to terrorists. Theinternational community must unite as never before to take determined, collective action

against the threat that failing and failed states pose to global security. (Straw 2001)

For state officials relying on the concept of failed states provided the opportunity to relate the

otherwise intangible and diffuse threats of terrorism to concrete objects and spaces. In

participating in the failed state network, however, policymakers had now to rely on and listen to

those actors who were identifying states as failed, and moreover fostered the intermingling

between security and development issues, otherwise often keenly kept apart.

Also the discipline of IR was transformed in the process of its enrolment. IR was enrolled in the

concepts network from the very beginning as it was taken as opportunity to rethink the core

assumption of international relations as being in essence an inter-stateworld. Disciplinary actors

debated IRs core assumptions through the lens of the newly emerged failed states network.The new notions of sovereignty that emerged after the end of the Cold War challenged dominant

notions of IR-theory, such as (structural) realism. Prior to the 1990s, the main focus of IR

scholars was on the interaction of the great powers (Ayoob 1991). After the end of the Cold War,

a slow but increasing interest in the less developed/non-Western (OECD) can be diagnosed.

Notably security studies shifted its focus on the question of whether conflict in the developing

world could have implications for the stability of the international system. While this transformed

apprehension for the rest of the world can certainly not only be explained by the failed states

network (in a causal sense), participating in the network certainly is one factor of such

transformation.Furthermore, given that the concept of failed states implied the need to investigate the inside of

nation states, and considerable knowledge about governance systems, local cultures and

traditions was fed into the network by African scholars, IR scholars came also to puzzle more andmore about these local specificities. In other words, through its enrolment IR became a discipline

more than ever before interested in the internal politics of non-OECD states. More marginal

(centrally Non-western and least developed) regions moved to the centre of attention of many IR

scholars. A discipline otherwise mainly concerned with the interaction between states was thus

increasingly interested in understanding the interior of nation states. IR started to be concerned

about the particulars of exotic governance systems. Participating in the diverse projects of the

failed states network meant for IR moreover, to increase its potential for policy relevance. The

failed states concept provided IR scholars the opportunity to demonstrate policy relevance and to

aim at impacting public policy discourses. The policy-oriented streams of scholarship, in line

with the seminal article from Helman and Ratner (1992), tend to point to the problem of failed

states and call for action in the form of a change of practices in the international system. For

instance, Crocker and Holm argue:

By concentrating on worst-case scenarios of immediate vulnerability, moreover, the Bushadministration overlooksthe failed-state crucible in which many threats to U.S. interests

are forged and risks alienating the partners and undercutting the credibility required to

address them.(Crocker 2003a: 32, emphasis added)

failing states are a problem for the entire international system because the statesystem exists to provide both order and justice. Disintegration of states opens the way for

expansion by other states or seething instability and humanitarian crises. It is therefore in

the interests of all states that states do not fail (Holm 2002: 459, emphasis added).


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In summary, in this section we have discussed instances of how the network was stabilized and

how it transformed the actors identities in processes of translation. The World Bank became a

security organization; foreign policy makers became dependent on actors identifying states asfailed; and IR scholars became interested in the interiors of often exotic states. After

demonstrating in the previous section that the failed state network consists of diverse actors who

stabilize the network, we now have seen some of the particulars of how actors became related.Our third narrative discusses the life story of the failed state as a story of power and control.

A story of control

Enrolment is an ongoing procedure which keeps the behavior of diverse actors consistent with

the network. While actors will mainly adjust their behavior due to the translation of their interest

and identity, often actors aim to occupy a position of power and control in the network. As

briefly introduced, ANT has advanced the terms of spokespersonship and obligatory passagepoints to speak about such moves. To manufacture an obligatory passage point is to provide an

object that can serve as a script for other actors roles or cannot be sidelined if one wants to

address issues related to the concept of failed states, e.g. in providing a definition. Hence, the

struggle over power and control of the failed state network is closely related to practices of

labeling, defining and quantifying the concept. This becomes most obvious with the fact that

plenty of actors proposed definitions and typologies for the concept.

Several scholars made moves to obtain power within the network by establishing a definition of

the concept (Esty et al. 1995; Gros 1996; Zartman 1995; Rotberg 2004; Millikin 2002). For

instance Gros (1996) proposes a taxonomy for failed states. He suggests that five types of failedstates may be identified on the world scene: the anarchic (Somalia and Liberia), the phantom

(Zaire), the anaemic (Haiti and Cambodia under different circumstances), the captured (Rwanda)

and the aborted (Bosnia). (Gros 1996: 461)

Such moves also often entailed to contest the term failed states in itself and to suggest related

terms, such as fragile states, or collapsed states which are used within the discourse. The term

failed state, however, is and remains a key term in the debate, notably where foreign policy

cycles and IR-scholars are concerned.

Figure 2: failed state and related concepts


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To evaluate whether these moves to create an obligatory passage point within the failed states

network were successful, we use (co-)citation analysis and look at the cited references of the

published articles in the network. Citation analysis looks at the number of references an author or

article receives. By turning to the cited references, we can overcome the focus of the SSCI onjournal articles and assess the influence of other forms of publications (edited books, working

papers, reports by IOs etc.) as well. We use the same sample of SSCI data as above, but extend

the coverage to 2010 to increase the sample size. The updated sample consists of 213 articles.Those articles cite 5749 different authors with 7973 different works. If one single piece of work

stands out regarding the number of citations it receives by the articles in the sample, we suggest

that it serves as an obligatory passage point and may indicate spokespersonship. Figure 3 shows

the most cited articles in the sample.29

Figure 3: Most cited publications

0 5 10 15 20 25

Bratton, M. 1997Clapham, C. 1996

Fearon, J. 2004Hameiri, S. 2007

Hegre, H. 2001Huntington, S. 1993Huntington, S. 1996

Jackson, R. 1982Reno, W. 1995

White House 2002World Bank 2002

Gurr, T. 1993Herbst, J. 2000

Rotberg, R. 2003World Bank 2004

Collier, P. 2004Duffield, M. 2001

King, G. 2001Milliken, J. 2002Collier, P. 2000

Rotberg, R. 2002Chabal, P. 1999Fearon, J. 2003

Jackson, R. 1990Fukuyama, F. 2004

Kaplan, R. 1994Rotberg, R. 2004

Zartman, W. 1995

Figure three illustrates that the network at least, in terms of citation, is dominated by IR scholars

and to some extent by area specialists. Non-academic actors like IOs, foreign policymakers,

development agencies and think tanks are cited to a lesser extent. However, the inclusion of the

National Security Strategy of the United States (White House 2002) in the list of most cited

publications indicates the relevance of foreign policy actors. Furthermore, the World Bank is

represented in the network with a publication on development indicators (World Bank 2004) and

its LICUS strategy (World Bank 2002). Overall, the publication by Zartman (1995) stands out as

the most cited reference. This is no co-incidence, since this work represents the first edited

29 Although we opted for the top 20 cited publications, figure 3 shows 28 articles because the last 11

publications have equal citation scores.


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volume on the phenomenon and thus became a reference point for scholars and practitioners, who

newly became enrolled in the network.

However, no single publication of an author stands out that much that we can clearly identify an

dominating actor. We suggest that until now no clear authority, which speaks in the name of thefailed state, has evolved.

However, citation analysis usually favors older (academic) publications. Thus our analysis does

not fully capture the engagement of other, non-academic actors, especially think tanks, whorecently initiated a new struggle over defining the concept. These new actors introduced new

denominations of the concept, such as LICUS, framing the phenomenon with a language more

familiar within the development discourse. Furthermore, those actors fostered the technization of

the concept. Development Agencies, IOs and think tanks developed proxy lists, which tried to

identify failed states with varying quantitative indicators (DFID 2005b; Weinstein et al. 2004;

World Bank 2002). New approaches go even further and translate the concept into measurable

indicators and construct rankings for all states in the global system. The most prominent example

of efforts to measure the phenomenon is the so-called Failed States Index, published by the non-

profit organization Fund for Peace (Fund for Peace 2009) since 2005 on a yearly basis.Meanwhile a number of alternative indices emerged, which try to capture the degree of state

failure by aggregating quantitative indicators (Mata and Ziaja 2009: 27). Thus the main attempts

to control the network are currently made through a technical framing of the concept.

Figure 4: Attempts to measure state failure/state fragility

Index/Ranking Producer

CIFP/ Fragility Index Carleton University

LICUS/CIPIA The World Bank

Failed States Index Fund for Peace

Index of State Weakness Brookings InstitutionState Fragility Index George Mason University

List of fragile countries DFID.

Fragility - Indicators USAID

By applying a technical vocabulary, speaking of a diagnosis and monitoring of the problem,

those actors suggest a pure evidence based approach and address policymakers directly. One

instance is the Failed State Index by the Fund for Peace. As argued,

The Failed States Index presents a diagnosis of the problem, the first step in devising

strategies for strengthening weak and failing states. The more reliably policymakers can

anticipate, monitor, and measure problems, the more they can act to prevent violent

breakdowns, protect civilians caught in the crossfire, and promote recovery. [] Policies

should be tailored to the needs of each state, monitored and evaluated intensively, and

changed, as necessary, if recovery is not occurring as intended. (Fund for Peace 2009)

It seems to be no coincidence that these new approaches are heavily criticized by IR actors. For

example Rotberg is rather skeptical about the results of the Failed States Index.

This year's Failed States Index, using a different methodology, produces some puzzling

results. [] A more objective system of rankings would better help policymakers analyze

the options available and choose the prescriptions that best fit the country in peril

(Rotberg 2009).


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Moves such as Rotbergs can be interpreted as attempts to reject and contest the attempts of

others to occupy a central position in the network.

In summary, our third narrative demonstrated how the story of the failed state is not only a storyof growth in that greater numbers actors become enrolled and a story of translation in that

participating actors transform, but also a story of struggle over homogenizing the scope, aim and

meaning of the concept. It is by embracing these three stories that a fuller story of how the failedstate was made as a collective project of policy makers, IOs, development agencies, think tank

staff, as well as academics from various disciplines. The contentious character of the network

elaborated in our third narrative, stresses, however, that building it is contentious. Indeed the fact

that the concept is of such an ambiguous nature, is well interpreted as an effect of those struggles

in which some passage points have been established but no member or element of the network

managed to gain full authority over it and become the central spokesperson for the network.

ANT provides us interesting lenses to understand the circulation of concepts such as the failed

state. In contrast to other approaches a richer, much more dynamic picture develops. The story ofa concept such as the failed state requires us to consider all sorts of actors, and, as shown, the

relations between these actors are crucial to understand how a concept transforms and how actors

participating in the circulation adjust their behavior. Also, entities of the network, such as IR, are

transformed through their participation. We have shown that IR is a crucial part of the circulation

network of the failed state. While having an important role in the network, IR, nonetheless, has

not established itself as the main authority over the failed state.

Understanding the circulation of concepts, or the value of ANT

The world of contemporary global politics is rich in cases of concepts which are ambiguous and

employed by scientists and policymakers alike. The concept of failed states is just one of these.Researchers have made little effort to understand how these concepts evolve, how they are

circulated and how they are kept alive. The fact that many if not most of these concepts are

simultaneously political tools as well as scientific analytical frameworks has not spurred

considerable attention either. A frequent response to this observation has been to argue for a

sharp separation between the discourses of science and the discourse of politics. Yet, as we have

argued in this contribution, it is important to study the interaction between science and politics, to

make sense out of the contemporary political vocabulary as much as to understand the structure

and transformation of disciplinary knowledge production.

Even if it is at the margins, there has been a growing interest in researching the role of the social

sciences in global politics. Perspectives such as the epistemic community framework or the

nascent sociology of the discipline are, however, not well fitted to studying the social

development of global concepts. They are strong in studying disciplinary structures and situationsin which well-manufactured knowledge claims are disseminated by an advocacy group. Yet they

are too narrow to grasp the circulation of global concepts.

We introduced ANT as an alternative for understanding the multiple dimensions of the life of

concepts. As a parsimonious theory, or voluntarily poor ontological vocabulary, ANT highlights

the need to investigate empirically the relations giving life to concepts. In our case study we

advanced different narratives of the life of the failed state. A narrative of enrolment showed us

how diverse the group of actors contributing to the circulation is. A narrative of translation toldus how the actors participating are transformed. Finally, a narrative of passage points discussed

instances of moves to establish control over network and with it over the concepts meaning. The


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