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South Asia's Weak States : Understanding the Regional Insecurity Predicament, edited by T. V. Paul, Stanford University Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=683289. Created from apus on 2020-03-18 08:51:07.

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South Asia, which consists of eight states of different sizes and capabili-

ties, is characterized by high levels of insecurity in inter state, intrastate, and

human dimensions. Although most emerged as independent nations in the

1940s, the states in the region have not yet been able to settle their several

conflicts—internal and external—while some have become the epicenters

of both traditional and non-traditional security problems, especially trans-

national terrorism fueled by militant religious ideologies. The region also has

not developed adequate institutional mechanisms and normative frameworks

for solving its myriad security challenges collectively and nonviolently. One

result of this is that even when some conflicts are resolved, others emerge in

their place, often leading to the continuation of the cycle of violence in other

parts of the region.

What explains the chronic insecurity of South Asia? A large set of vari-

ables have been presented in the literature for this multifaceted insecurity

problem. They include: 1. irreconcilable national identities; 2. lack of politi-

cal development (i.e., the absence of proper democratic institutions and pro-

cedures); 3. weak economies; 4. unsettled territorial disputes; and 5. lack of

regional institutions.1 While these factors can explain a great amount of the

chronic insecurity of the region, especially at the interstate level, we still lack

a compelling explanation that can cover substantial ground for the perpetual

multidimensional insecurity of South Asia. Most of the literature on South

Asian security deals with interstate dimensions; there has been a somewhat

State Capacit y and South Asia’s

Perennial insecurit y Problems

t. V. Paul

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4 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

excessive focus on the India-Pakistan rivalry and, in recent years, the nuclear

relationship that has emerged between the two states.2 As a result, scholarly

and policy studies of the region’s security problem do not treat it in a way that

captures its multidimensionality or the relationship between internal, inter-

state, and human security dimensions.

I argue that South Asia’s multidimensional insecurity can be explained

largely by two critical factors: the presence of weak states and weak coopera-

tive interstate norms. Both state capacity and weak cooperative norms act

largely as intervening variables in causing regional insecurity, as they them-

selves may be caused by other underlying factors, which I do not cover in

this chapter. Other chapters in this volume treat more closely the underlying

factors for the weak state syndrome, such as difficulties with state formation

and state consolidation in South Asia. It should be noted that state strength

alone need not alleviate interstate insecurities, but in some instances it may

exacerbate them.3 Hence, the need for states that observe norms of coopera-

tion, nonintervention and territorial integrity is all the more important for

regional security. Moreover, state capacity becomes very crucial in dealing

with internal security challenges, which tend to generate interstate conflicts,

especially in South Asia.

Various estimates of state capacity place South Asian states among the

weakest states globally. For instance, five of the South Asian states have en-

tered the twenty-five weakest states in an annual index of 120 countries pub-

lished by Foreign Policy magazine since 2006. These states—Afghanistan,

Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka—carry considerable conflicts

internally and spillover effects externally.

The region also has weak norms of cooperative behavior. These norms

or standards of behavior—often developed through institutional arrange-

ments, as in the case of states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations

(ASEAN) —could provide a compensatory mechanism for preventing violent

conflicts even among weak states. In South Asia, what is noticeable is a pau-

city of nonintervention norms. In other words, the states in the region are not

often willing to live by the imperatives of the territorial status quo, as they

exhibit characteristics of revisionism to varying degrees. Moreover, internally,

states tend not to have highly effective mechanisms for the peaceful settle-

ment of conflicts through democratic means, generating opportunities for

disgruntled groups to engage in violent conflicts that are also tempting targets

for external intervention. Nevertheless, states in South Asia are exceptionally

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t. V. Paul 5

sensitive to the norms of sovereignty and sovereign equality, even when they

do not fully believe in respecting the sovereignty of their neighbors.

What is a Weak State?

Before discussing weak states, it is important to examine state capacity, a topic

that has received considerable attention in the sociology and comparative poli-

tics literatures. I define state capacity as “the ability of a state to develop and

implement policies in order to provide collective goods such as security, order,

and welfare to its citizens in a legitimate and effective manner untrammeled

by internal or external actors.” This definition modifies a view of a coercive

state as a strong state by adding welfare and legitimacy factors into the mix

of attributes for determining capacity. In the contemporary world, a proper

democratic system may be essential for a state to have legitimacy. This defini-

tion draws from the existing scholarship on the subject.4

At the most general level, a weak state is a state low in capacity, defined in

terms of its ability to carry out its objectives with adequate societal support.5

Since this definition draws together characteristics of the state apparatus itself

and its relationship to societal actors, scholars have identified many different

phenomena that indicate the general concept of capacity. According to Robert

Rotberg, a weak state suffers from deficiencies in the areas of (a) security (i.e.,

the state security forces, both military and police, are unable to provide basic

security to all citizens in a legitimate and effective manner); (b) participation

(open participation is limited as elections, if they take place at all, may not be

fair and impartial); and (c) infrastructure (the physical infrastructure of the

state is in very poor condition while health and literacy are accorded low levels

of national priority).6 A weak state, according to Kal Holsti, suffers from low

levels or the absence of “vertical” and “horizontal” legitimacy. The former

implies that “substantial segments of the population do not accord the state or

its rulers loyalty.” The result is that the decisions and decrees of state rulers do

not elicit “habitual compliance.” An absence of horizontal legitimacy refers to

the definition and political role of the community; that is, there is “no single

community whose members, metaphorically speaking, have signed a social

contract among themselves. Instead, there are numerous communities and

categories that shape the nature of politics and authority structures.”7

A weak state by its very nature is unable to provide sufficient levels of

protection to all its citizens. Sometimes political or military elites have the

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6 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

wherewithal to acquire wealth and develop capacity in some kinds of coercive

instruments. But the ruling elite often lacks legitimate authority and control

in much of the country and frequently will have to engage in brute force to

suppress dissidence among disenchanted ethnic or political groups. Possess-

ing some capacity distinguishes this kind of situation from one in which the

central government has no coercive resources at all. But this suppression nei-

ther creates peace nor increases the support base of the regime. The absence of

legitimacy and the full allegiance of population are major chronic challenges

that a weak state would face.8

The characterization of weakness has to be seen in relative terms, as most

states have some elements of strength. A state may be weak in some areas

while in others it may show relative strength. That is why not all weak states

are “failed states.”9 For instance, Pakistan has a fairly strong army for waging

external wars, and to that extent it is able to provide a measure of security to

its citizens against external threats, particularly vis-à-vis India, but it is weak

in almost all other aspects of state strength. Moreover, we frequently find the

pattern that a state has a modicum of coercive resources but lacks the ability

to provide welfare and the legitimacy required for long-run stability—a kind

of “strength” that “is ultimately based on fear, force, and coercion rather than

on consent or voluntary compliance. It therefore suffers from a legitimacy

deficit.”10

A Typology of Weak States Based on the above discussion, four types of weak states can be identified for

the South Asian region: failed states, very weak states, weak states, and strong-

weak states.

Failed State:

This is a state that has failed in all crucial aspects of state strength: security,

welfare, and legitimacy. Such a state may have limited control over the terri-

tory it contains. It depends heavily on foreign financial and military support

for its daily existence. Afghanistan is the closest case in South Asia, as it sur-

vives largely through external support and has limited or no control over vast

chunks of its territory.

Very Weak (Fragile) State:

Such a state has somewhat better control over its territory, but this control

is tenuous, especially since it is coupled with a lack of legitimacy and an in-

ability to provide welfare. In South Asia, Nepal comes closest to this category.

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t. V. Paul 7

Weak State:

The weak state may be weak in legitimacy, welfare, and ultimately security,

but it has substantial coercive power. Due to its lopsided coercive capacity,

it would use force to suppress internal dissidence but in the end not become

much stronger. Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh come under this category.

Strong-Weak State:

The state is strong in several aspects, especially in its legitimacy and control

over most parts of the country. It is weak in terms of its ability to provide wel-

fare and internal security. However, over time such a state exhibits the highest

prospects for emerging as a strong state, given its advantages in legitimacy.

India typifies such a state in South Asia.

• • •

These categories are only for analytical purposes, and they need not capture

all the nuances in assessing state strength. A state could move periodically

from a very weak to a weak category and return to the former subsequently.

The crucial point here is that all states in South Asia are weak in many dimen-

sions of state strength and that the relationship between state capacity and

security, broadly conceived, is complex and multidimensional.

how Weak States Af fec t Securit y: Causal Linkages

Weak states contribute to insecurity in multiple ways.11 It would be circu-

lar to define state weakness in terms of an inability to provide security and

then see state weakness as a cause of insecurity. But a focus on state weak-

ness helps bring out some interesting dimensions of insecurity challenges. In

particular, weak states can face dilemmas in seeking to become strong, and

state weakness sets up complex, multidimensional security challenges. First,

weak states cannot often face internal security threats effectively, as they have

poorly developed police and internal security forces. Facing a “state-strength

dilemma,” rulers of these states attempt to increase their capabilities and

presence, which “generates resistance that weakens the state. In attempts to

overcome resistance, governments rely on coercive measures against local

power centers of various types, as well as against communal/religious/ethic

groups.”12 Moreover, weak states have limited national institutional capacity

to tackle security challenges effectively.13 This generates personalist and ad

hoc approaches to security threats, especially internal ones.

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8 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

Second, secessionist and irredentist groups tend to operate from weak

states and threaten the security and integrity of neighboring states. In such

contexts, irredentism, which may combine with secessionism, is especially

a problem, given that the same ethnic group may inhabit two neighboring

states, and their allegiance to one or both states is often questionable.14 Insur-

gents and terrorist groups could be tacitly or openly promoted by state elites

or leaders of ethnic groups sympathetic to the cause of their co-nationals.

Third, regimes in weak states sometimes externalize internal conflicts to

strengthen their domestic positions. The expectation is that diversionary wars

or crises would distract popular attention from internal economic, social, and

political problems while bringing legitimacy to the regime that engages in such

activities. This would be supported by military, bureaucratic, and political in-

stitutions that thrive on such conflicts.15 Engaging in external conflict can also

allow a state to successfully pander to key interest groups. The actions they

undertake would create negative security externalities or spillover effects for

others, causing intensified security dilemmas not only in the traditional area

of military security but in nontraditional domains such as human security.16

Finally, weak states offer fertile grounds for external powers, especially

major powers, to meddle in their regions either as coalition partners or as

sympathizers to antagonistic internal groups. The pathologies and behavioral

attributes of weak states thus generate regional insecurity at the interstate,

intrastate, and human dimensions.

How does South Asia fit into this characterization of weak states’ insecu-

rity dilemma? Before addressing this issue, I examine the chief characteristics

of the South Asian region.

South Asian Subsystem Charac teristics

A region is a geographical cluster of states that are proximate to each other

and thus are interconnected in spatial and cultural terms. This intercon-

nectedness may manifest itself in strong security and, in some instances, eco-

nomic ties. William R. Thompson defines a region as “a set of countries that

are or perceive themselves to be politically interdependent,” or as “patterns of

relations or interactions within a geographic area that exhibit a particular de-

gree of regularity and intensity to the extent that a change at one point in the

system affects another point.”17 The states in a system thus interact regularly

in a variety of ways, creating patterns of intricate relationships. David Lake

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t. V. Paul 9

defines a regional system as “a set of states affected by at least one transborder

but local externality that emanates from a particular geographic area. If the

local externality poses an actual or potential threat to the physical safety of

individuals or governments in other states, it produces a regional security sys-

tem or complex.”18 A regional subsystem has also been said to generate a set of

“security complexes” which “rest, for the most part, on the interdependence

of rivalry rather than on the interdependence of shared interests.”19

The definitions of region and regional security complex that rely exclu-

sively on states suffer from problems, as they tend to offer very traditional

approaches to the understanding of a regional subsystem. The main focus in

such analyses is the interactions among states in an anarchic system, where

the assumption is that states are the pivotal actors and have the capacity to en-

gage in intense competition or rivalry. However, a regional subsystem can in-

clude both state- and societal-level interactions and insecurities.20 Employing

the lens of the state to view all the security problems of a given region may fail

to capture the independent role of nonstate actors as players in security affairs.

Despite this major problem, the scholarship on regional subsystems has

relevance to South Asia. Conflict and cooperation patterns in the regional

subsystem may be a reflection of the particular interdependencies and ex-

ternalities of the interconnected states as well as societal groups. The South

Asian region has some subsystemic characteristics as well as different clusters

of relationships that cannot be placed neatly under a systemic framework.

Most of the South Asian states emerged in the decolonization era, and the two

principal actors—India and Pakistan—underwent a bloody partition during

that process. Although variations can be seen in the levels of state capacity

(India with the highest and Afghanistan the lowest), almost all of the eight

countries of South Asia are weak states with strong societies. They all have

experienced difficulties with state formation and consolidation. State and na-

tion are incongruent in these countries.21

The region is geographically and demographically India-centric, given that

nearly 70 percent of the land mass and population lie with India; hence it is also

called the Indian sub-continent. The region is also characterized by multitudes

of divisions, based on religious, ethnic, and other identities. Though India-

centric, South Asia cannot be described as a hegemonic sub system, although

India can exert quite a bit of influence over the smaller states such as Bhutan,

Maldives, and Nepal. Part of the reason for this lack of hegemony is the un-

willingness of key states to accept Indian leadership, let alone dominance on

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10 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

many issues. The region is not economically interdependent, and as a result a

potential source of power that India could exert is missing. Unlike the Ameri-

cas, where most of the smaller states have implicitly accepted U.S. hegemony

in return for economic benefits and implicit or explicit security guarantees,

South Asian states (barring tiny Bhutan and Maldives) neither have developed

such a relationship with India nor do they have potential to do so in the near

future. The newly emerging states are hypersensitive about their sovereignty,

a theme that I will address later in this chapter.22 More than that, India has yet

to become overwhelmingly preponderant in the security and economic arenas,

a development that may take place in a few decades given the country’s recent

rapid economic growth. The normative dispositions of most of the states are

not quite congruent with the Indian ethos of democracy or secularism, lessen-

ing its power over the smaller neighbors. In many respects, these small states

want to create a national identity dissimilar to India’s.

Weak States and Conf lic t Pat terns in South Asia

The South Asian states generally exhibit weaknesses in terms of their ability

to deal with security, including economic and human dimensions. However,

they do carry considerable lopsided coercive power, as evidenced in the near

impossibility of secession for disgruntled regions.23 Secession might also have

become difficult due to the unwillingness of outside powers to offer recog-

nition and possibly due to the emergence of a territorial integrity norm in

international politics.24 This does not mean that secessionist movements will

simply fade away, as states appear unable to completely quell or integrate the

groups clamoring for independence.

The security problems in the region have three key dimensions: interstate,

intrastate, and human security. These three types of conflicts are interrelated

and are influenced by the way the people and governments of the region in-

teract. The weak state problem affects security at these three levels. At the

interstate level, the India-Pakistan rivalry is the largest conflict. It has escalated

to three major wars (1947–48, 1965, and 1971), one minor war (1999), and

nine interstate crises.25 The acquisition of nuclear weapons by the two states,

especially in the aftermath of their nuclear tests in May 1998, has created a

sort of deterrent relationship, marred by a stability-instability paradox, that

is, some stability at the strategic level but instability at the substrategic level.

Since 2004, the nuclear-armed neighbors have engaged in peace negotiations,

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t. V. Paul 11

but chances look dim for a final termination of the rivalry or the settlement of

the key issues dividing them in the near term. The Pakistan-Afghanistan con-

flict is yet another interstate conflict with strong internal dimensions. India

and Bangladesh have a conflict over unsettled borders, although its intensity is

not too strong. These interstate conflicts generate internal security challenges

and in turn human security problems for a large number of people, especially

ethnic minorities living on both sides of the border.

The intrastate conflicts are numerous and highly visible, and I discuss

some of them below for each country. Here I want to highlight terrorism as

one important kind of crossover between the intrastate and interstate secu-

rity challenges. According to estimates, South-Central Asia registered one of

the highest rates of terrorist attacks in 2007 and several previous years.26 The

Afghan conflict; the rise of the Taliban; Pakistan’s past support for the Tal-

iban and continued support for the Kashmir insurgency; and the active pres-

ence of terrorist cells in Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh all denote a mélange

of groups engaging in violent terrorist activity in the region for more than two

decades. Terrorist incidents are becoming more frequent, and states appear

unable to quell them, partly due to weak police and intelligence capabilities.

Some terrorist groups indeed are challenging any move toward full demo-

cratic rule and any semblance of secular policies.

Human security implies people’s freedom from both violent and non-

violent threats. For human security advocates, people are the point of refer-

ence, in a departure from the national security state’s focus on the security

of territory or governments. Ensuring human security entails taking preven-

tive measures to reduce vulnerability and minimize risk and taking reme-

dial actions when violations take place.27 Pervasive threats to human security

constitute one of the region’s most significant challenges. A low emphasis on

human security in the region is tied to the historical underdevelopment of

South Asia, its highly unequal social order, its multitudes of ethnic divisions

as well as caste and class divisions, and the poor economic policies pursued by

the governments of the region over the years. Although with increased eco-

nomic growth rates some human security problems can be tackled, what is

noticeable is that the reverse appears to be happening in a large segment of

South Asia. Economic globalization and liberalization may indeed accentuate

human security problems unless states become strong and are able to imple-

ment policies aimed at reducing the social dislocations that accompany these

economic trends.

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12 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

Let us look at each of the key states:

Afghanistan, situated in the periphery of the region, is an extreme case of

long-standing external penetration and internal violence, largely bred by the

absence or the nonestablishment of a strong state.28 It has had the misfortune

of falling in a geostrategic location that has attracted the intense interests of

great powers in the modern era, Britain and Russia first and then the Soviet

Union and the United States, while neighboring Pakistan’s policies have con-

tributed to its perennial insecurity. Afghanistan’s weaknesses cause Pakistan

insecurity in the form of refugees and transborder crimes such as drug traf-

ficking. The major events of Afghanistan’s past thirty years—the Soviet in-

vasion in 1979, followed by the ten-year-long brutal war with the U.S- and

Pakistani-supported mujahidin, the Soviet departure in 1989, the arrival

of the Taliban in 1996 and their offer of safe haven for al-Qaeda, followed by

the U.S.-led war that saw their deposition from power and the continued war

since 2002 between the allies and a resurgent Taliban—all have made this

very fragile state the epicenter for security challenges facing South Asia and to

some extent the entire world, in the early twenty-first century.

Pakistan is very much a state without a fully developed nation and also

shows the signs of a garrison state.29 The incongruence between state and

nation is very marked in this case. Islam, the original source of Pakistan’s

identity, in juxtaposition to India, is not a sufficient unifying force as mul-

tiple loyalties based on ethnicity, intra-Islamic divisions, and economic and

class affiliations weaken cohesion. The absence of sustained democratic rule,

a proper federal structure, and economic integration of the provinces have

made Pakistan a weak state. Its own long-standing involvement in neighbor-

ing countries (Indian Kashmir and Afghanistan) and the elite’s willingness

to use multiple instruments, including terrorism, for obtaining tactical goals,

have made the country a breeding ground for long-standing insecurity for

both itself and its neighbors. Pakistan also has a very poorly developed edu-

cational system, with 70 percent of its primary education offered through re-

ligious seminaries or madrasahs. This absence of a liberal educational system

has generated conditions whereby many Pakistani youth join radical religious

movements that now have emerged as a major challenge not only to Pakistan’s

internal stability and South Asia’s security but to global security as well.30

Pakistan has been facing several internal conflicts on religious and eth-

nic lines. The most prominent are the Sunni-Shia divide, the ethnic and se-

cessionist conflicts in Baluchistan, Pashtun areas of the Northwest Frontier

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t. V. Paul 13

states, and the Sindh and, in recent times, conflicts between various Islamist

groups and the military-led and current civilian regimes. The upsurge in con-

flict in the Northwest areas, especially in Waziristan, and the state’s absence

of effective control over this region pose considerable security problems for

neighboring Afghanistan and the Western coalition forces battling the Tal-

iban. While the internecine conflicts themselves weaken the Pakistani state,

the lack of proper state capacity allows the conflicts to continue. This feed-

back loop is a fundamental source of perpetual violence in the region.31 The

weak state capacity has once again become very clear in the inability of the

state to control the new wave of violence perpetrated by Taliban forces within

Pakistan. In 2009, these forces had made steady inroads in several parts of the

country, especially in the Swat valley. Pakistan has faced an intense barrage

of terrorist attacks since 2007, and in 2008-09 alone it registered 1400 deaths

due to terrorist strikes.32

Sri Lanka experienced one of the most violent internal conflicts in the re-

gion, a conflict that lasted nearly three decades. The violent phase of the

conflict began in the early 1980s when the Tamil minority began to make

stronger power-sharing demands in response to attempts by the Sinhalese po-

litical elite to marginalize them and deny equal citizenship rights. The hard-

ening of positions on both sides led to the formation of the Liberation Tigers

of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which began a violent insurgency in the northeast in

1983, where it wanted to create a separate homeland. The Sinhalese govern-

ment’s response was military repression, which further alienated the Tamils.

In response, Tamils have employed extremely violent methods, such as sui-

cide bombings and other forms of terrorist activity. In 2002, a peace agree-

ment under the sponsorship of Norway was signed, but after four years of

relative calm it broke down in 2006, and violence resumed once again. In

April 2009, the Sri Lankan army defeated the LTTE. The fundamental causes

of this conflict lie in the inability of Sri Lanka to fulfill the political and eco-

nomic aspirations of the Tamil minority.33 In that sense, even after the Sri

Lankan army’s military victory, the island nation is unlikely to achieve peace

without a proper reconciliation of the aspirations of the Tamil population.

Nepal also has had a violent internal conflict that has recently made a cru-

cial turn toward a settlement. A landlocked country, Nepal had monarchic

rule until it was abolished in May 2008. The monarchy had little concern

for either offering security or prosperity to the Nepalese. The resulting ab-

ject poverty generated intense violence in the form of a Maoist insurgency

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14 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

that lasted from 1996 to 2006. The internal conflict is also accentuated by the

inability of the politically dominant group, high-caste Hindus from the hill

regions (especially the ruling monarchy), to offer political and economic op-

portunities to lower-caste groups that include Dalits (untouchables) and peo-

ple from the Terai region, or Madhesis.34 The Maoists exploited the deprived

groups’ grievances in gaining support for their militant struggle. In April

2008, the Maoists won national elections for a new Constituent Assembly, and

one of the first decisions they took was to abolish the monarchy. Although

subsequently the Nepali political parties succeeded in forming a Constitu-

ent Assembly with the aim of drafting a new constitution and the Maoists

installed themselves as new leaders for a brief period, there are no guarantees

of an amicable democratic political system emerging for all groups. A weak

Nepal generates considerable internal security challenges for its neighbors,

especially for India. The Maoists have links with fellow insurgents in several

Indian states. Refugees from Nepal and trafficking in women are two other

human security issues in the India-Nepal context. Part of Nepal’s problems is

the absence of a healthy relationship with India. The Nepalese do not often

view India in a sympathetic light despite the massive economic aid that India

has provided to the beleaguered country. India’s support for the monarchy, its

frequent meddling in Nepalese politics, and its inability to restrain border-

area groups such as the Madhesis have caused divisions in this relationship.

Bangladesh exhibits several internal conflicts, with the army and political

parties waging frequent battles for control of the state. After its emergence in

1971, following a bloody civil war that saw India’s military intervention, Ban-

gladesh has struggled to develop a democracy while restraining its military.

Even when Bangladesh has had successful elections and representative govern-

ments, one of the peculiar aspects of its democracy has been the unwillingness

of the opposition parties to give the winner a chance to govern. Agitations

start the day after an election, causing military rule or anarchic order to re-

emerge. As a partly low-lying country that is afflicted by the vagaries of the

Bay of Bengal, with its storms and floods, Bangladesh’s immense poverty

pushes a large body of its population to migrate to India for economic reasons.

This has produced intense opposition in Assam, Tripura, and West Bengal and

considerable violence in Assam especially. In order to stem the tide, India has

fenced the border with Bangladesh, but this has created much ill will among

Bangladeshis, who seem to consider borders irrelevant in South Asia, espe-

cially vis-à-vis their cultural brethren-states of West Bengal and Tripura.

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India, though perhaps the strongest of all the states in the region, has often

been described as a “strong-weak” or “soft” state. Although it meets several

criteria of a strong state—long-standing and fairly developed political and

bureaucratic institutions, armed forces under civilian control, and a nation-

ally integrated economy—it still seems to suffer from the strong-weak state

syndrome: strong in some areas but weak in others. In recent years, India

has registered an impressive economic growth rate of 7–8 percent, which has

secured it a role as an emerging major economic and military power.35 How-

ever, its institutions, especially political parties, parliament, bureaucracy, and

judiciary, as well as domestic security forces, have often been blamed for sub-

par performance, including in the area of internal security.36 India constantly

faces internal conflicts, especially involving minority populations in Kashmir

and the northeast states. Kashmir is the most visible and intense of the con-

flicts in the region and has both intrastate and interstate dimensions. The ma-

jority Muslim province has been a hotbed of violence since 1947, and conflict

over its status has been punctuated by several crises and wars between India

and Pakistan. It is often argued that India’s inability to integrate Kashmir

is partly because of its policies, but Pakistan’s irredentist claim and Islam-

abad’s active support for Kashmiri insurgent groups are also strong reasons.

The inability of the myriad groups within Kashmir to come to a clear politi-

cal position is another part of the reason for the absence of a solution.37 The

Kashmir imbroglio has also created a fertile ground for increasing terrorist

activity within India. In 2007, India recorded the largest number of terrorist-

related deaths—2300—for any single country, even higher than Afghanistan

and Iraq.38 Some of the terrorist activity is generated by foreign-trained indi-

viduals who, in concert with local sympathizers, engage in violent activities.

India’s security forces have serious difficulties in coping with this scourge.

India’s other major internal security challenge occurs in the northeast of

the country. The insurgency movements in Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur,

Tripura, and Assam have tied down India’s security forces over a long period

of time.39 In these states, a variety of movements have been fighting for more

political control or independence. Their demands spring from the continued

lack of attention by India’s power elite to developing these regions economi-

cally, as well as from porous borders that allow the groups to get training

from outside, including from Nepal, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. India’s re-

sponse, resorting to coercive military means to quell the unrest, seems to have

helped to increase alienation in the region.

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16 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

Despite its impressive economic growth rates since the early 1990s, India

has a highly lopsided economic development pattern. The upper strata of so-

ciety have become wealthier, and although the middle class has increased,

nearly 300 million still live on an income of less than $1 a day.40 Among them

are the poor peasants in tribal belts and the lower castes, who are increasingly

demanding their rights and equal opportunities. These demands have taken

many forms—in some cases, peaceful electoral politics, but in others, vio-

lent responses to the state and its institutions. Conflict over demands for eco-

nomic quotas, especially in employment and education, forms a major part of

the internal struggle in India today. In recent years, a corridor has formed in

India’s tribal belts from the north to the south, under the influence of Naxal-

ites (ultraradical Maoists). In this corridor, Indian security forces are largely

unable to assert their control because the latter use guerrilla tactics and have

wide support among the deprived masses, especially in tribal areas.41

India also has difficulty with the full integration of minority groups, espe-

cially Muslims, although it has a better record on the issue of minority rights

compared with its South Asian neighbors.42 The large Muslim minority, com-

prising 14 percent of the national population, constitutes a huge underclass

in terms of economic development and social opportunities, some of which

offer fertile ground for Islamic radicalism.43 In addition, during the Bharatiya

Janata Party (BJP) rule in states like Gujarat, intense violent incidents oc-

curred, shattering Muslim confidence in the ability of the Indian state to pro-

tect them. In recent years, Christians, especially in Orissa and Gujarat, have

also been targeted by Hindu fundamentalist groups and sometimes by BJP-

led governments in their effort to prevent alleged conversions to Christian-

ity by lower-caste Hindus, repressed by their upper-caste brethren. To India’s

credit, the Hindu-Muslim conflict now seems confined to pockets and rarely

spreads to the national level.

The internal conflicts in all key countries also pose considerable problems

at the human security level for the inhabitants of the region, the majority of

whom are living in abject poverty, illiteracy, poor health conditions, low calo-

rie intake, and inadequate sanitary conditions, akin to sub-Saharan Africa.44

A stark manifestation of the human security problem is exhibited by the high

number of refugees and internally displaced persons that the region copes

with. South Asia’s cities are filled with shantytowns and slums populated by

rural migrants seeking better opportunities. The region also has high levels of

child labor, trafficking in women, drug trafficking, diseases such as HIV/AIDS

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and tuberculosis, and a host of other nontraditional and human security chal-

lenges that are assuming new and wider proportions in the globalization era.

The presence of weak states in the region has resulted in the active involve-

ment of major powers, especially the United States and China.

ex ternal Ac tors and South Asia’s Weak States

Major powers can intervene in a region through competition, cooperation,

engagement, disengagement, hegemony, or a mixture of these ideal types.

As Benjamin Miller contends, major powers can influence a region’s conflict

pattern, transforming it from cold war to hot war or cold peace to warm

peace and vice versa. Major powers cannot resolve the problem of nation-

to-state incongruence, but they can, through their support or the absence of

support, generate conditions for conflict to persist or dissipate over time.45

The major powers play an important role in South Asia, despite India’s domi-

nant power position in the region. The region’s pivotal geostrategic location

is part of the reason for this phenomenon, but the presence of weak states

in conflict contributes to this activism by outside powers, as in the cases of

Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Both India and Pakistan were targets as well as often willing partners in

the cold war competition between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Pakistan has been a willing partner in the U.S.-led alliance system, and it de-

veloped a strong military relationship with Washington that has experienced

ups and downs since 1954. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 set in

motion a powerful wave of superpower involvement in the region. The defeat

and disorderly withdrawal of the Soviet forces in 1989 and the emergence of

the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1996 brought considerable insecurity to the re-

gion and continued great power interest. The Taliban also brought al-Qaeda

to the region by sheltering Osama bin Laden and his network of terrorists

until they were deposed in 2002 through a military invasion led by the United

States, following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

In the post–cold war era, major power involvement is largely focused

on the Afghanistan/Pakistan area. The warming bilateral relations between

India and the United States and China, and the decreasing interest of Russia

in the subcontinent, have reduced opportunities for major power competi-

tion in the region. However, China’s activism in some South Asian states and

neighbors, especially in Pakistan and Myanmar and increasingly in Nepal,

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18 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

and India’s efforts to counter such efforts, have generated competitive dy-

namics in the subsystem’s security predicament. In recent years, the United

States has shown some equidistance in India-Pakistan relations and has

helped to conduct the peace process between the two states, but the military

option is still its dominant approach to the war on the Taliban and al-Qaeda

in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Major power activism in the region is likely to

increase if the Sino-Indian relationship develops into a rivalry and the United

States gets involved in the form of new balance-of-power coalitions. More-

over, as of 2009, the Afghan conflict shows no signs of resolution, and without

radical transformation, this part of South Asia is likely to pose considerable

challenges to major powers, especially the United States.

Cooperation Pat terns in South Asia: Absence of Strong Norms

The conflict dynamics seem to have affected cooperation patterns in the re-

gion in a major way. The South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation

(SAARC) has been struggling to make an impact for a long period of time.

Although it was established in 1985, it has not been as effective as ASEAN

in Southeast Asia or Mercosur in South America in fostering regional coop-

eration and the peaceful settlement of disputes. The intense rivalry between

India and Pakistan may be part of the cause for this absence of sustained re-

gional cooperation. Regional cooperation is hampered by a peculiar dynamic

in South Asia. In particular, South Asian states are hypersensitive on sover-

eignty but are unwilling to fully accept the sovereignty norm vis-à-vis their

neighbors. They are somewhat revisionist or anti–status quo on the issue of

territorial borders.

South Asia’s states thus willingly or inadvertently challenge the norm of

nonintervention (especially in internal affairs) and respect for territorial bor-

ders, two of the cardinal principles of state sovereignty in the modern era. Part

of the problem is that states are sometimes unable to control borders, but there

is also a deliberate strategy on the part of elites to intervene in the affairs of

others, generating considerable ill will toward each other as well as lingering

mutual suspicions. Over the years, both India and Pakistan have engaged in

internal interventions, with India helping the division of Pakistan in 1971 and

Pakistan abetting insurgencies in Punjab and Kashmir. India intervened in Sri

Lanka between 1987 and 1990 in the form of peacekeeping, only to withdraw

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after major losses to its forces in their battles with the Tamil liberation guerril-

las. Bangladesh and Nepal, often due to their instabilities, allow their conflicts

to spill over to India. While India has, in recent years, refrained considerably

from external interventions, the small states of the region still view India as

hegemonic, rightly or wrongly. The Pakistani elite strategy involves active in-

tervention in the affairs of India and Afghanistan through asymmetric means.

Terrorist incidents, with or without the connivance of Pakistani officials, have

occurred with increasing frequency in India, especially since 1989, when the

Kashmiri insurgency began. While these interventions serve the limited tacti-

cal calculations of particular elites, in terms of regional order they have pro-

duced chronic insecurity and lingering mutual antagonisms.

Comparing with Other Regions How have other regions with weak states fared in the security arena? South

Asia’s immediate neighboring region to the east, Southeast Asia, has been

much more successful in creating a regional institutional mechanism that has

helped prevent conflict at the interstate level. Although they have high levels

of intrastate insecurity, the original ASEAN states (Brunei, Indonesia, Malay-

sia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand) have abstained from interstate war

since the 1960s, and the new members (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Myan-

mar) also currently refrain from interstate violence. The ASEAN states have

also settled most of their border disputes, even those involving China, though

in 2009 the Cambodia-Thailand border dispute was flaring up. Southeast Asia

has developed a limited security community with two norms of behavior—

nonintervention in internal affairs and defensive military postures—in spite

of the fact that there have been no common policies on defense or security and

despite the states’ use of alignments, bandwagoning, and limited balancing,

especially of the soft balancing variety. Informal norms are most often preva-

lent in regional interaction. The relative stability in the region has encouraged

some scholars to call it a “nascent security community” characterized by the

absence of war and the expectation of no military attacks among member

states.46 The “ASEAN way” of cooperation, based on limited institutional

engagement, is believed to help change state behavior through consultation,

“socialization inside international institutions,” and “persuasion” as well as

“modes of behavior,” through “habits of cooperation.”47 The nonintervention

principles include refraining from criticizing the actions of governments to-

ward their own people and denying recognition and sanctuary to groups that

seek to overthrow a neighboring state’s government. ASEAN governments

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20 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

are encouraged to support member state policies against subversive groups.48

These nonintervention principles may be one of the reasons why the South-

east Asian states (unlike their South Asian counterparts) have avoided inter-

state conflicts but persist with high levels of internal violence. The ASEAN

states also have been fairly successful in limiting great power intervention and

conflict initiations through institutional mechanisms. The ASEAN Regional

Forum (ARF) has been a crucial forum for great powers to engage and thereby

adopt norms of cooperation as far as the region is concerned.

Africa is another region that has attempted to develop limited institutional

mechanisms for security management, but with less success than Southeast

Asia. Almost all the forty-two states in sub-Saharan Africa are weak states,

while a few are called “failed” or “failing” states.49 Although the African states

are not often in a position to engage in intense military challenges (somewhat

similar to the small states of South Asia), they created interstate norms—such

as the adherence to the territorial integrity norm—that entrench colonially

created borders. With the changing capacity of African states, this norm has

been watered down, and the continent is witnessing more internal conflicts

spilling over to different states, but interstate wars are still rare.50 However,

the presence of several civil conflicts has also prevented African states from

emerging as strong entities.51

Latin America, especially the Southern Cone of Mercosur member states

(Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay, and to an extent associate mem-

ber Chile), has also developed much higher levels of cooperation than South

Asia, despite the presence of internal violence and undemocratic states. An

implicit acceptance of U.S. hegemony also means that, barring a few occa-

sional renegades like Cuba, Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), and Venezuela

(under Hugo Chavez), most of the regional states simply do not engage in ac-

tivities directly hostile to the United States. Here, almost all states have come

to agree to the existing territorial divisions and rarely challenge the territo-

rial order militarily. The most notable sign of progress is the near absence of

war among the region’s states.52 Despite the regional economic organization

and Mercosur’s efforts to widen cooperation, the region’s absence of proper

democratic order and perpetual internal instability have caused it to remain

less integrated than Western Europe and Southeast Asia.53 Despite all these

problems, it still seems better off than South Asia in the areas of regional co-

operation and peaceful order, especially at the interstate level.

These three regions offer some insights into how regional cooperation

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may develop among weak states, even when they have different security en-

vironments and historical trajectories. The key to the reduction of security

challenges in Southeast Asia and the Mercosur region arises from the focus on

economic cooperation. Further, the absence of a major territorial dispute sim-

ilar to Kashmir has helped these states to form limited security communities.

Why is South Asia different, with its high levels of interstate and internal

conflicts? In some sense, South Asia contains some of the conflict patterns of

the Middle East and Africa. The Middle East is defined in terms of the Arab-

Israeli conflict, although the great power penetration is much more intense

there than in South Asia. A low level of state capacity also is a reason for the

continued problems that the Middle East is facing today. However, differences

between these regions, such as the vital importance of oil in the Middle East,

the presence there of different, separated security theatres (the Gulf, Israel

and its neighbors, and the western end of North Africa), and the absence of

a single leading Middle Eastern state make accurate comparisons difficult.

The spillover of conflict across borders that characterizes much of contempo-

rary Africa’s insecurity situation is replicated in South Asia; however, it is not

matched by a comparable degree of traditional interstate conflict.

Research Questions Some pertinent research questions that guide this volume are:

• What explains the chronic insecurity of the South Asian region?

• How does state capacity affect security at interstate, intrastate, and

human dimensions in the region?

• How does the relative paucity of strong cooperative norms determine

or contribute to the regional insecurity problem?

• What are the causes of the persisting weak state syndrome in

South Asia?

—Are these causes due to historical/structural factors or the way

states were formed in the region, the disjunction between state

and nations that constitute them, and the interjection of external

actors within the region? How do economic factors affect state

capacity and security?

—What role does civil society play in the persistence or amelioration

of the weak state syndrome in the region?

• What solutions can be proposed for making states strong while

engendering cooperative norms of behavior?

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22 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

This volume aims at exploring these and related questions and thereby un-

derstanding the myriad ways in which low levels of state capacity in conjunc-

tion with the absence of cooperative and noninterventionist interstate norms

have affected the region and prevented it from developing a peaceful security

order. It engages scholars of international relations and comparative politics

in order to explore the underlying and proximate factors that cause and con-

tribute to the perpetual insecurity and human suffering in South Asia.

The first set of chapters (Part II) discusses the different theoretical and

conceptual dynamics of weak states and links that to the South Asian in-

security problem. The chapters deal with state capacity in general and its

implications for security, broadly defined. In Part III, each of the key coun-

tries—India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—is

analyzed in order to see how state capacity impinges on their security (inter-

state, intrastate, and human) and how it has affected their security policies to-

ward their neighbors. Due to space limitations and their tiny size, the region’s

two other states, Maldives and Bhutan, are not discussed. Part IV contains the

concluding chapter, which draws out the implications of the previous chap-

ters, examines why strong, cooperative interstate norms are not developing,

and inquiries into what can be done to transform the region. The insights

each chapter provides will be useful to any scholar or policymaker interested

in understanding South Asia’s persistent conflict patterns and insecurity di-

lemmas and in offering possible solutions.

Notes to Chapter 1

1. For some of these causes, see chapters in T. V. Paul, ed., The India-Pakistan

Conflict: An Enduring Rivalry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

2. Key works include: Paul, India-Pakistan Conflict ; Raju Thomas, ed., Perspec-

tives on Kashmir: The Roots of Conflict in South Asia (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992);

Sumit Ganguly and Devin Hagerty, Fearful Symmetry: India-Pakistan Crises in the

Shadow of Nuclear Weapons (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005); S. Paul

Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia

(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); Rajesh Basrur, Minimum Deterrence

and India’s Nuclear Security (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006); Amitabh

Mattoo, Kapil Kak, and Happymon Jacob, eds., India & Pakistan: Pathways Ahead

(New Delhi: KW Publishers, 2007); E. Sridharan, ed., The India-Pakistan Nuclear Re-

lationship: Theories of Deterrence and International Relations (Delhi: Routledge, 2007).

3. Maya Chadda, in her chapter in this volume, argues that France and Germany

were strong states prior to 1945 but had intense rivalry, and that the emergence of a

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strong Nepal or Pakistan need not result in peace between them and India. For her,

the structural causes that generate these conflicts are not addressed by state capacity

alone. I concur that state capacity is a necessary and not a sufficient variable for a

peaceful regional order. However, in conjunction with robust norms of cooperation,

strong states, especially democracies, generate peace, as contemporary France and

Germany show.

4. See, Joel S. Migdal, Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and

State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp.

4–5; Peter Evans, Embedded Autonomy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995).

5. Eric A. Nordlinger, “Taking the State Seriously,” in Understanding Political De-

velopment: An Analytical Framework, ed. Myron Weiner and Samuel P. Huntington

(Boston: Little Brown, 1987), p. 369.

6. Robert I. Rotberg, ed., State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003).

7. Kalevi J. Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1996), pp. 104, 106.

8. Regime security could thus be intermingled with state security for such a state.

See Mohammed Ayoob, The Third World Security Predicament (Boulder, CO: Lynne

Rienner, 1995).

9. Peter Dauvergne, “Weak States, Strong States: A State-in-Society Perspective,”

in Weak and Strong States in Asia-Pacific Societies, ed. Peter Dauvergne(St. Leonards,

NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1998), p. 8. Foreign Policy uses twelve social, economic, and

political indicators in determining the status of a state in its “failed state index.”

These are mounting demographic pressures, massive movement of refugees, a legacy

of vengeance-seeking group grievance, chronic and sustained human flight, uneven

economic development along group lines, sharp economic decline, criminalization/

delegitimization of the state, progressive deterioration of public services, suspension

or arbitrary application of the rule of law and widespread violation of human rights,

nonstate security apparatuses operating within a state, and the rise of factionalized

elites and intervention of other states or external actors.

10. Holsti, State, War, p. 84

11. On these see, Holsti, State, War, p. 40; Francis Fukuyama, State Building: Gov-

ernance and World Order in the 21st Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2004),

chapter 3.

12. Holsti, State, War, p. 117.

13. On the role of effective institutions to overcome dislocations engendered by

economic and social change, see Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing

Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968).

14. On this, see David D. Laitin, Nations, States and Violence (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2007), pp. 3–6, and Stephen M. Saideman and R. William Ayres, For

Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (New York: Columbia University

Press, 2008).

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24 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

15. On diversionary wars, see Jack S. Levy, “The Diversionary Theory of War: A

Critique,” in Handbook of War Studies, ed. Manus I. Midlarsky (Ann Arbor: Univer-

sity of Michigan Press, 1993), pp. 259–288.

16. For negative security externalities, see David A. Lake, “Regional Security Com-

plexes: A Systems Approach,” in Regional Orders, ed. David A. Lake and Patrick M.

Morgan (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997), p. 49. On the

security dilemma in internal conflicts, see Jack Snyder and Robert Jervis, “Civil War

and the Security Dilemma,” in Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, ed. Barbara F.

Walter and Jack Snyder (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), pp. 15–37.

17. These definitions are drawn from William R. Thompson, “The Regional Sub-

system: A Conceptual Explication and a Propositional Inventory,” International Stud-

ies Quarterly 17, no. 1 (March 1973), p. 101.

18. Lake, “Regional Security Complexes,” in David A. Lake and Patrick M. Mor-

gan, Regional Orders: Building Security in a New World (University Park, PA: Penn

State Press, 1997), pp. 48–49. Peter Katzenstein considers regions as having “both

material and symbolic dimensions, and we can trace them in patterns of behavioral

interdependence and political practice.” Katzenstein, A World of Regions (Ithaca: Cor-

nell University Press, 2005), p. 2. See also Douglas Lemke, Regions of War and Peace

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

19. Barry Buzan, “A Framework for Regional Security Analysis,” in South Asian

Insecurity and the Great Powers, ed. Barry Buzan and Gowher Rizvi (Houndmills, UK:

Macmillan, 1986), p. 8.

20. One exception to the focus on states to the exclusion of nonstate actors is

Barry Buzan and Ole Wæver, Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Secu-

rity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).

21. For Miller, “a state-to-nation imbalance” is present when “the regional states

(entities or institutions administering a certain territory) and the national sentiments

of the peoples in the region (that is, their political aspirations of living as national

communities in their own states)” do not match. Benjamin Miller, States, Nations

and the Great Powers: The Sources of Regional War and Peace (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2007), p. 18.

22. The microstate of Maldives recognizes the need for smaller countries in South

Asia to be sensitive to India’s security concerns. Maldives’s foreign minister, in an

interview with the author, contended that his country views India as an opportu-

nity with its huge market, and believes that a form of benign finlandization (similar

to Finland’s relationship with the Soviet Union/Russia) of smaller states is perhaps

necessary for regional peace and order in South Asia. To him, the small states should

try to work with India and not against the larger neighbor’s security interests. He

warns against the temptation among some small states in the region to form balance-

of-power coalitions with outside powers, which could be disastrous for these states

themselves. For the South Asian states, barring Pakistan, have little structural reasons

for intense conflict with India, and much of the differences of opinion are percep-

tual, deriving from notions of sovereign equality desired by new states and the legacy

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t. V. Paul 25

of nonalignment and Third World solidarism propounded by Nehru, Suharto, and

Nasser. Author’s interview with Ahmed Shaheed, Foreign Minister of Maldives, Male,

February 3, 2009.

23. Rizvi argues that the separation of Bangladesh was a very rare event due to

geographical distances and the repressive policies of the military government of Paki-

stan; but without Indian intervention, it would not have happened. Even Pakistan,

while “politically a weak state . . . has considerable coercive power to prevent further

secession.” Gowher Rizvi, “Pakistan: the Domestic Dimensions of Security,” in Buzan

and Rizvi, South Asian Insecurity, p. 83. See also M. P. Singh and Veena Kukreja, eds.,

Pakistan: Democracy, Development and Security Issues (New Delhi: Sage Publications,

2005), p. 13.

24. On this, see Robert H. Jackson, Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Re-

lations and the Third World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Mark

Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm: International Boundaries and the Use of

Force,” International Organization 55, no. 2 (2001), pp. 215–250.

25. The latter figure is as of 1997. See Michael Brecher and Jonathan Wilkenfeld,

A Study of Crisis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), p. 821.

26. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2007, chapter 2,

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/103709.htm.

27. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994,

http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr1994/. See also Giorgio Shani, Makoto

Sato, and Mustapha Kamal Pasha, eds., Protecting Human Security in a Post–9/11

World: Critical and Global Insights (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).

28. On Afghanistan, see Rasul Bakhsh Rais, Recovering the Frontier State: War,

Ethnicity, and the State in Afghanistan (Lexington, KY: Lexington Books, 2008).

29. See Christophe Jaffrelot, ed., Pakistan: Nationalism without a Nation (Lon-

don: Zed Books, 2002); Ayesha Siddiqa, Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Econ-

omy (London: Pluto Press, 2007). According to Lasswell, a “garrison state” is one that

has a “preoccupation...with danger,” where “the specialists on violence are the most

powerful group in society,” and principal preoccupations of ruling elite are “skillfully

guiding the minds of men . . . [through] symbolic manipulation,” and “prevent[ing]

full utilization of modern productive capacity for non-military consumption pur-

poses.” Harold Lasswell, “The Garrison State and Specialists on Violence,” in Lass-

well, ed., The Analysis of Political Behavior (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1948),

pp. 146, 149, 153, 154.

30. On the educational system, see C. Christine Fair, The Madrassah Challenge:

Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (Washington, DC: United States Insti-

tute of Peace Press, 2008).

31. On Pakistan’s weaknesses, see Stephen Philip Cohen, The Idea of Pakistan

(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2004), pp. 3–4; Husain Haqqani,

Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for

International Peace, 2005).

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26 State Capacity and South Asia’s insecurity Problems

32. Aijaz Maher, “Pakistan Lists 1400 Terror Dead,” BBC News, April 18, 2009,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8004731.stm.

33. On this conflict, see Jayadeva Uyangoda, “Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka:

Changing Dynamics,” Policy Studies no. 32 (Washington, DC: East-West Center,

2007); Sankaran Krishna, Post-Colonial Insecurities: India, Sri Lanka and the Question

of Nationhood (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

34. On this see, Susan Hangen, “Creating a ‘New Nepal’: The Ethnic Dimension,”

Policy Studies no. 34 (Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2007).

35. On this, see Baldev Raj Nayar and T. V. Paul, India in the World Order: Search-

ing for Major Power Status (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); C. Raja

Mohan, Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India’s New Foreign Policy (New York:

Palgrave-Macmillan, 2003).

36. On this, see Devesh Kapur and Pratap Bhanu Mehta, eds., Public Institutions

in India: Performance and Design (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

37. For a comprehensive treatment, see Paul, India-Pakistan Conflict.

38. U.S. Department of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2007.

39. It is estimated that over 109 movements operate in the region, some pushing

for outright independence, others for more indigenous rights or autonomy. Sanjib

Baruah, “Postfrontier Blues: Toward a New Policy Framework for Northeast India,”

Policy Studies no. 33 (Washington, DC: East-West Center, 2007); Monirul Hussain,

Interrogating Development: State, Displacement and Popular Resistance in Northeast

India (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2008).

40. On whether India’s liberalization has helped the poor or not, see Baldev Raj

Nayar, The Myth of the Shrinking State: Globalization and the State in India (New

Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009).

41. On the Naxalite problem, see Pratul Ahuja and Rajat Ganguly, “The Fire

Within: Naxalite Insurgency Violence in India,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 18, no. 2

(June 2007), pp. 249–274.

42. On ethnic conflicts in India see Maya Chadda, Ethnicity, Security and Separat-

ism in India (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997); Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic

Conflict and Civic Life: Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University

Press, 2002).

43. Soutik Biswas, “Why Do Indian Muslims Lag Behind?” BBC News Online,

August 9, 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6938090.stm.

44. On this, see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (New York: Anchor

Books, 2000), pp. 99–103.

45. Miller, States, Nations, pp. 62–81.

46. On security communities, see Emanuel Adler and Michael Barnett, eds., Se-

curity Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). On Southeast

Asia, see Amitav Acharaya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia:

ASEAN and the Problem of Regional Order (London: Routledge, 2001).

47. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Socialization in International Institutions: The

ASEAN Way and International Relations Theory,” in International Relations Theory

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t. V. Paul 27

and the Asia-Pacific, ed. G. John Ikenberry and Michael Mastanduno (New York:

Columbia University Press, 2003), p. 108.

48. Herman Craft, “The Principle of Non-Intervention: Evolution and Chal-

lenges for the Asia-Pacific Region,” in Non-Intervention and State Sovereignty in the

Asia-Pacific, eds. David Dickens and Guy Wilson-Roberts (Wellington, New Zealand:

Center for Strategic Studies, 2000).

49. Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace, “Failed States Index 2008,” Foreign

Policy, July-August 2008.

50. Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist:

The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood,” World Politics 35, no. 1 (1982), pp.

1–24; Jeffrey Herbst, States and Power in Africa: Comparative Lessons in Authority and

Control (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).

51. Jeffrey Herbst, “States and War in Africa,” in The Nation-State in Question,

ed. T. V. Paul, G. John Ikenberry, and John A. Hall (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 2003), p. 166.

52. See Arie M. Kacowicz, Zones of Peace in the Third World: South America and

West Africa in Comparative Perspective (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998); Jorge I. Domin-

guez, ed., International Security and Democracy: Latin America and the Caribbean in

the Post-Cold War Era (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998).

53. According to Andrew Hurrell, although the region does not yet constitute a

security community, it may be in the process of developing into one. See Hurrell, “An

Emerging Security Community in South America?” in Adler and Barnett, Security

Communities, pp. 228–264.

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