The third World States and Monopoly Essay.
Category: History
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The third World States and Monopoly of use of force within their territories
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Many Third World states today suffer from a poor, corrupt and elitist way of leadership. Most of these countries are still stuck in poor leadership, with a promise of false democracy. The leaders in these states have a selfish agenda that makes their craving for power insatiable. Third World states are weak because they cannot put an end to the use of force by political adversaries to control the country. This paper will analyze how these third world states have been unable to establish a monopoly over the legitimate use of force within their territories and what they can do to end such atrocities.
According to Tilly and Ayoob, statistics record most conflicts as having been from Third World Countries. Most of these conflicts occur with the territory of a state, primarily attributed to political differences and security concerns (Ayoob, 1996). The people within the territories of the Third World States are from different ethnic backgrounds, which sometimes leads to one ethnic group believing to have superiority over other ethnic groups. The superiority clouds the democratic process in the election of their leaders, and they find themselves having one ethnic group having a monopoly in leadership, and with monopoly comes dictatorial tendencies. Dictatorship, although not expressly defined by Tilly and Ayoob, it has been implied as one of the reasons why these third world states end up failing. The dictatorship only benefits the ideologies of one set of people at the expense of the other.
Effecting human rights as a role of a state and not a universal right. Westernized countries such as North America build the blueprint of an effective statehood, which means putting the burden of ensuring human rights compliance on the State (Ayoob, 1996). Most of these Third World states are not fully functioning states, unlike westernized countries that are fully functioning states, which means they can quickly meet the basic needs of their people; human rights, political participation and security. However, these Third World states being not fully formed states, struggle to provide these basic needs. Third World countries work to keep up with the westernized standard of building a state while ensuring that their citizens receive their inalienable rights (Ayoob, 1996). Of course, one of the two struggles is deemed to fail, and unfortunately, human rights realization has been a colossal struggle in these Third World States. These states are struggling to give their people basic needs, but it is not enough by international standards. International standards of an acceptable standard of living lead to retaliation by the people, making it difficult for these states to sustain themselves.
The lack of effective statehood has led to the emergence of quasi-states in the Third World States, which have turned into failed states. Quasi-states are small breakaways of people who believe that their State is not serving their needs, leading to ethnonational self-determination (Ayoob, 1996). Ethnonational Self-determination, therefore, leads to the rise of conflict. Ethnonational self-determination is the process through which different ethnic groups believe that they should not live together, and consequently, they choose to separate and live in other territories. This type of self-determination happened in Rwanda, between the Hutu and Tutsi, but it failed, resulting in the world’s worst case of Genocide. While self-determination and the right to establish independence are encouraged, mass self-determination is the leading cause of conflict (Ayoob, 1996). Different sets of people believe that they should disassociate themselves from the rest. Therefore they go into war, fighting for their right to separation. For instance, the separation of the Soviet Union saw the rise of conflicts within different states, occasioning severe human atrocities such as the humanitarian dispositions in Former Yugoslavia, where various factions believe that the other should not be within their territory.
The political divide within the State occasioned uncivil wars. Uncivil wars are usually an attempt by two different factions to legitimize the country, holding on to a failing state with an effort to revive it (Ayoob, 1996). These various factions have different ideologies, and in their attempt to revive the State, it causes more harm than good. This continuous cycle is why most Third world countries are still unable to disregard force in their territories. These Third World states view their countries as a process and not an event, viewing the process as irreversible, which is indeed false (Ayoob, 1996). Like any other process, a state failure is an event, like a disease. Diseases have been cured, and so do state failures, but it is dependent on the states and their people to make the necessary changes to end these failures.
Certain people benefit from the prolongation of war; Superpowers, private arms dealers, and criminal cartels (Ayoob, 1996). Superpowers had a high involvement in the military, primarily through arms transfer and distribution. These superpowers made a killer business over the distribution of arms through these quasi-states. With a hold, these superpowers wanted to expand their client list, which meant approaching more countries and instigating war. With war comes the need for ammunition, and being a supplier of such ammunition, they stand to profit from hind purchases of the commodity. Therefore, these superpowers saw the instability of these countries, doing just enough to make it a stable state and making sure it is fragmented enough that they will need their ammunition (Ayoob, 1996). Superpowers are not the only ones that contributed to the use of force within these Third World Territories; private arms dealers and criminal cartels also had a lot to gain from the arms trade. The more these Third World States conflicted, the more profit they stood to make from the arms trade, which meant that they had to ensure that the conflict continued for as long as possible.
Another reason for failure to establish a monopoly is failed political regimes. A stable political regime ensures the safety of its citizens, providing stability and security (Ayoob, 1996). A political regime falls when the political leaders cannot offer their people security, driving their people to political factions, ethnic groups, or criminal gangs to provide them with the security they crave. The security instability causes unrest among the people, causing conflict amongst the different political factions, ethnic groups and criminal gangs.
Finally, the persistence of force has been occasioned by coercive exploitation of Third World States by developed countries. Third World states have since changed from what they were before to what they are now because some have been exploited for their labour, minerals, and land (Tilly, 2017). For Instance, Africa was doing quite alright before the invasion by Europe, having some of the European countries such as Belgium, Spain, Italy, Britain, France and Germany invading Africa and exploiting its people of minerals, land and labour. Before the invasion, Africa had no boundaries and no marked territories, but after the attack by Europe, Africa experienced delamination. Delamination happened when the European countries reached an agreement to divide the continent into different states to exert their rule (Tilly, 2017). These European countries exploited the minerals, the labour and the land of the Africans, taking all the fertile land for themselves. The Africans had enough, and most of them retaliated to have their independence. After independence, the colonial rule still held these African states; Europeans still owned significant mining companies and land and had even enslaved some of the people. The African leadership that took over still maintained the selfish, oppressive and dictatorial rule, which made these African states retaliate against their leaders because of the residual exploitation and hold that the European and Westernized states had over the African people.
References
Ayoob, M. (1996). State-Making, State-Breaking and State Failure: Explaining the Roots of ‘Third World’Insecurity. In Between Development and Destruction (pp. 67-90). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Tilly, C. (2017). War making and state making as organized crime (pp. 121-139). Routledge.