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Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts

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Abstract

Concepts such as the ‘failed state’ are jointly produced by academics and political actors and hence connect academia and global politics. Little attention has been spent to study such concepts and the practices that create them and sustain their relevance. We develop an innovative framework for studying concepts. Relying on actor-network theory, we suggest studying concepts as effects of relations between different actors building an actor-network. We introduce actor-network theory and demonstrate its value for international relations (IR) research. Our empirical case study of the concept of failed states combines bibliometric analysis and qualitative text analysis. We show how various actors have brought the concept of failed states to life; analyse how actors transformed because of their participation; and investigate the persistent struggles to define and homogenise the concept. In summary, this is an article about the life of the failed state, the discipline of IR and its relations to other actors, and an introduction of the actor-network theory toolbox to the sociology of IR.

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Notes

  1. See, for instance, the discussions in Bueger and Gadinger (2007), Bueger and Villumsen (2007), Smith (2004) and Walker (1995).

  2. See, for example, Habermas (1969).

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

  4. Cp. the critique by Lidskog and Sundqvist (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.

  5. See, for instance, Waever and Tickner (2009), Wæver (1998), and for good summaries Bell (2009) and Bueger (2007).

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

  7. For example, Walker (1995). Cp. the discussion in Bueger and Villumsen (2007: 421–3).

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

  9. Other useful frameworks that could be developed in this direction include approaches to intellectual history as reviewed in Bell (2009), Begriffsgeschichte as used in Hellmann et al. (2007) to analyse the vocabulary of German foreign policy, symbolic interactionist theorising, notably the idea of boundary concepts as discussed in Gasper (2005) or an understanding of concepts as political symbols as developed by Barnett et al. (2007) for the case of the concept of peacebuilding.

  10. 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 IR include Walters (2002), Lidskog and Sundqvist (2002), MacKay (2007), Srnicek (2010) and Edwards and Gill (2002).

  11. We here use the signifier ANT, although we recognise 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’ and the ‘Sociology of Translations’ (cp. Latour 2005; Gad and Bruun Jensen 2009).

  12. In 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 constitute the actors. For a discussion of the relation between social network analysis and ANT, see Mutzel (2009).

  13. A web appendix with additional information on the search query and the articles included in the sample, as well as replication data is provided in the ‘Supplementary info’ section of the online version of this article. The bibliometric analysis was conducted using the software bibexcel developed by Persson (2006).

  14. See, for example, Buzan (1983), Krasner (2004), Sørensen (2001).

  15. Cp. Clarke and Herbst (1996), Crocker (2003), Dorff (2005), Herbst (1997).

  16. Cp. Gordon (1995), Simpson (1996), Weiss (1994).

  17. The project was initiated at the request of US policymakers and subsequently received much academic and media attention, which culminated in an article in Nature right after the events of September 11 (Adler 2001).

  18. For example, Crocker (2003), King and Zeng (2001), Krasner (2004), Krasner and Pascual (2005), Lyman and Morrison (2004), Rotberg (2002, 2003, 2004).

  19. For example, World Bank (2002) and IMF (2008). 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.

  20. For example, AusAID (2005), BMZ (2006, 2007), DFID (2005a, 2005b), USAID (2005a, 2005b).

  21. Examples include Francois and Sud (2006), Hanlon (2008) and Kaplan (2007).

  22. For example, Ghani et al. (2005), Rice (2003), Rice and Patrick (2008) and Weinstein et al. (2004).

  23. See, for instance, Crocker (2003: 32), who argues that ‘the Bush administration overlooks the failed state’, or Holm (2002: 459), who suggests that ‘failing states are a problem for the entire international system’ and that it is ‘therefore in the interest of all states that states do not fail’.

  24. See Esty et al. (1995), Gros (1996), Zartman (1995) and Rotberg (2004). For instance, Gros (1996) proposes a taxonomy for failed states. He suggests that ‘five types of failed states 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).

  25. Although we opted for the top 20 cited publications, Figure 2 shows 28 articles because the last 11 publications have the same citation count.

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Acknowledgements

A previous version of this article was presented at the 51st Annual Convention of the International Studies Association. For helpful comments and suggestions on previous versions, we are especially grateful to Frank Gadinger, David McCourt, Patrick Jackson, Ole Waever and the participants in a research seminar at the Institute for Development and Peace (INEF), as well as the anonymous reviewers of JIRD.

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  1. Department of Politics, Cardiff University, 65-68 Park Place, Cardiff, CF10 3AS, Wales, UK

    Christian Bueger

  2. Institute for Politics and Communication Science, University of Greifswald, Baderstr. 6/7, Greifswald, 17489, Germany

    Felix Bethke

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Bueger, C., Bethke, F. Actor-networking the ‘failed state’ — an enquiry into the life of concepts. J Int Relat Dev 17, 30–60 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1057/jird.2012.30

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