Posted on January 5, 2010 in North Korea, Policy Research, South Asia.

The Ilmin International Relations Institute at Korea University has released the fifth paper in its policy briefing series, by Robert Rotberg of Harvard University, on “State Failure and State Poised to Fail: Asia and Developing Nations.”

Rotberg writes:

Asia is particularly at risk, given the prowess and power of non-state actors in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the failure of both governments effectively to provide qualitatively or quantitatively adequate levels of good governance to their citizens. That failure caps decades of regime failure in Afghanistan and at least one decade of weakness/failure in Pakistan. In both cases, as in Bangladesh, governance deficits stem originally from leadership mis-directions, not from structural flaws or post-colonial inheritances. Winning the war against insurgents in Sri Lanka has given President Mahinda Rajapakse’s administration an opportunity to move that nation-state from a position of continued weakness to strength, providing that his administration can build on its newly established security to deliver good governance to all, and not just the major part, of the country. India is a special outlier, with several states delivering high orders of political good, others less so, but all within an encompassing framework of security, law, participation, human development, and, finally, sustainable economic opportunity.

When and if there is a new dispensation in North Korea, all of these questions of reconstruction will arise.”

Download the entire briefing here.