Things Fall Apart: State Failure and the Politics of Intervention

Reviewing the growing literature on failed states, this article identifies a debate between proposals to resurrect United Nations (UN) trusteeship and other possible solutions. It questions the necessity for and the legal, moral, and practical implications of instituting large-scale, state-building mechanisms. Much of the opposition to trusteeship seems to be based on automatic criticism, linking it to colonialism and legal restrictions in the UN Charter. This type of response ignores the necessity for comprehensive long-term solutions to state failure. Trusteeship may seem radical, but it reflects the severity of the problem and challenges scholars and policymakers to break out of conventional modes of intervention. The conventional methods have not brought us any closer to developing viable means of responding to situations that threaten individual, state, and international security. Possible solutions lie in changing the direction of intervention policy toward comprehensive and coordinated efforts by compiling past experience into a more holistic approach, such as that of peace maintenance.