Editing Failed state (section)

== Promoting good governance and combating further hostilities in failed states ==
=== Transnational crime and terrorism ===
According to [[U.S. Department of Justice]] Trial Attorney Dan E. Stigall, "the international community is confronted with an increasing level of transnational crime in which criminal conduct in one country has an impact in another or even several others. Drug trafficking, human trafficking, computer crimes, terrorism, and a host of other crimes can involve actors operating outside the borders of a country which might have a significant interest in stemming the activity in question and prosecuting the perpetrator".<ref name="stigall" />

A study of the Cligendael Center for Strategic Studies<ref>{{cite book|last=Korteweg|first=Rem|title=Terrorist Black Holes: A study into terrorist sanctuaries and governmental weakness. (2nd ed.)|year=2006|publisher=Clingendael Centre for Strategic Studies.|location=Den Haag|author2=Ehrhardt, David}}</ref> explains why states that are subject to failure serve as sanctuaries (used to plan, execute, support, and finance activities) for terrorist organizations. When the government does not know about the presence of the organization or if it is not able to weaken or remove the organization, the sanctuary is referred to as a "Terrorist Black Hole". However, next to governmental weakness there needs to be "Terrorist Comparative Advantages" present for a region to be considered as a "Terrorist Black Hole". According to the study, social tensions, the legacy from civil conflict, geography, corruption and policy failure, as well as external factors contribute to governmental weakness. The comparative advantages are religion and ethnicity, the legacy from civil conflict, geography, economic opportunities, economic underdevelopment, and regional stimuli. Only the combinations of the two factors (governmental weakness and Terrorist Comparative Advantages) explain what regions terrorists use as sanctuaries.

Research by James Piazza of the Pennsylvania State University finds evidence that nations affected by state failure experience and produce more terrorist attacks.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Piazza | first=James A. | title=Incubators of Terror: Do Failed and Failing States Promote Transnational Terrorism? | journal=International Studies Quarterly | publisher=Oxford University Press (OUP) | volume=52 | issue=3 | year=2008 | issn=0020-8833 | doi=10.1111/j.1468-2478.2008.00511.x | pages=469–488 | s2cid=154963630 |quote=States rated highly in terms of state failures, irrespective of the type of state failure experienced, are more likely to be targeted by terrorist attacks, more likely to have their nationals commit terrorist attacks in third countries, and are more likely to host active terrorist groups that commit attacks abroad.}}</ref> Contemporary transnational crimes "take advantage of globalization, trade liberalization and exploding new technologies to perpetrate diverse crimes and to move money, goods, services and people instantaneously for purposes of perpetrating violence for political ends".<ref>{{cite journal |first=Bruce |last=Zagaris |url=http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1210&context=vlr |title=Revisiting Novel Approaches to Combating the Financing of Crime: A Brave New World Revisited |journal=Villanova Law Review |volume=50 |issue=3 |year=2005 |page=509}}</ref>

Contributing to previous research on the matter, Tiffiany Howard<ref name="Howard, T. 2010. pp.960-988">{{cite journal | last=Howard | first=Tiffiany | title=Failed States and the Spread of Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa | journal=Studies in Conflict & Terrorism | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=33 | issue=11 | date=2010-10-19 | issn=1057-610X | doi=10.1080/1057610x.2010.514696 | pages=960–988| s2cid=2827678 }}</ref> looks at a different dimension of the connection between state failure and terrorism, based on evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa. She argues that "citizens of failed states are attracted to political violence because of the deteriorating conditions within this type of states".<ref name="Howard, T. 2010. pp.960-988"/> Focusing on individual citizens' decision-making patterns, it is suggested that "individuals living in failed states are attracted to political violence because the system is broken—the state has failed in its duty".<ref name="Howard, T. 2010. pp.960-988"/> This finding is based on empirical evidence using barometer survey data. This individual-level approach, which differs from previous research which has focused on the attractiveness of failed states for terrorists and insurgents<ref>{{cite journal | last=Newman | first=Edward | title=Weak States, State Failure, and Terrorism | journal=Terrorism and Political Violence | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=19 | issue=4 | date=2007-10-08 | issn=0954-6553 | doi=10.1080/09546550701590636 | pages=463–488 | s2cid=145189068 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/233439939}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | editor-last=Freedman | editor-first=Lawrence | title=Superterrorism: Policy Responses | publisher=Blackwell Publishing | publication-place=Oxford | year=2002 | isbn=978-1-4051-0593-4}}</ref> finds that "failed states threaten an individual's survival, which ultimately drives them to obtain tangible political and economic resources through other means, which include the use of political violence".<ref name="Howard, T. 2010. pp.960-988"/> This finding has significant implications for the international community, such as the fact that "this pattern of deprivation makes individuals in these states more susceptible to the influence of internationally sponsored terrorist groups. As a consequence, failed states are breeding grounds for terrorists, who then export their radical ideologies to other parts of the world to create terrorist threats across the globe".<ref name="Howard, T. 2010. pp.960-988"/>

The link between state failure (and its characteristics) and terrorism, however, is not unanimously accepted in the scholarly literature. Research by Alberto Abadie, which looks at determinants of terrorism at the country level, suggests that the "terrorist risk is not significantly higher for poorer countries, once the effects of other country-specific characteristics such as the level of political freedom are taken into account".<ref name="Abadie2005">{{cite journal |last=Abadie |first=Alberto |title=Poverty, Political Freedom, and the Roots of Terrorism |journal=[[American Economic Review]] |year=2005 |volume=95 |issue=4 |pages=50–56 |doi=10.1257/000282806777211847 |url=http://www.nber.org/papers/w10859.pdf }}</ref> In fact, as the argument goes, "political freedom is shown to explain terrorism, but it does so in a non-monotonic way: countries in some intermediate range of political freedom are shown to be more prone to terrorism than countries with high levels of political freedom or countries with highly authoritarian regimes".<ref name="Abadie2005" /> While poverty and low levels of political freedom are not the main characteristics of failed states, they are nevertheless important ones.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.globalpolicy.org/nations-a-states/failed-states.html |title=Failed States |work=Globalpolicy.org |access-date=2018-10-29}}</ref> For this reason, Abadie's research represents a powerful critique to the idea that there is a link between state failure and terrorism. This link is also questioned by other scholars, such as Corinne Graff, who argues that 'there is simply no robust empirical relationship between poverty and terrorist attacks'.<ref>{{cite book | last1=Rice | first1=S.E. | last2=Graff | first2=C. | last3=Pascual | first3=C. | title=Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security |chapter=Poverty, Development and Violent Extremism in Weak States | publisher=Brookings Institution Press | series=UPCC book collections on Project MUSE | year=2010 | isbn=978-0-8157-0435-5 | url=https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2010_confronting_poverty.pdf | pages=42–89}}</ref>

Moreover, "problems of weakened states and [[transnational crime]] create an unholy confluence that is uniquely challenging. When a criminal operates outside the territory of an offended state, the offended state might ordinarily appeal to the state from which the criminal is operating to take some sort of action, such as to prosecute the offender domestically or extradite the offender so that he or she may face punishment in the offended state. Nonetheless, in situations in which a government is unable (or unwilling) to cooperate in the arrest or prosecution of a criminal, the offended state has few options for recourse".<ref name="stigall">{{cite journal |first=Dan E. |last=Stigall |url=http://www3.nd.edu/~ndjicl/V3I1/Stigall.pdf |title=Ungoverned Spaces, Transnational Crime, and the Prohibition on Extraterritorial Enforcement Jurisdiction in International Law |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161019185457/http://www3.nd.edu/~ndjicl/V3I1/Stigall.pdf |archive-date=2016-10-19 |date=February 3, 2013 |journal=The Notre Dame Journal of International and Comparative Law |volume=3 |page=1}}</ref>