Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States

Overview

As recent efforts in Bosnia, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, and now Iraq attest, state building has become a growth industry. Even the Bush administration, once highly resistant to U.S. involvement in such missions, is now willing to engage in state-building projects based on the recognition that failed states and rogue regimes seeking weapons of mass destruction pose the main security threats to the international community. James Fearon and David Laitin of Stanford University examine several cases in which major powers and international institutions have sought to prop up or rebuild a weak or collapsed state. Concluding that “the international system remains badly organized and badly served for dealing with the implications of state collapse,” the authors propose a system of neotrusteeship to facilitate coordination of future state-building activities.