The threat of terror, which flares in Africa and Indonesia, has given the problem of failed states an unprecedented immediacy and importance. In the past, failure had a primarily humanitarian dimension, with fewer implications for peace and security.

Preventing nation states from failing, and reviving those that do fail, has become a strategic, as well as moral, imperative. The introduction to this innovative book develops a theory of state failure and subsequent chapters illustrate the state failure paradigm by examining cases from around the world.