States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance: Complexity Theory Applied to UN Statebuilding in the DRC and South Sudan by Adam Day

Since the end of the Cold War, the multilateral system has developed an obsession with failed states. Seen as weak links and potential threats in the global system, failed and fragile states have received enormous amounts of political attention and resources. But thirty years on, we have relatively little to show for that investment. Decades of statebuilding in Afghanistan did little to prepare the country for the resurgence of the Taliban in 2021; more than twenty years of statebuilding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has seen little progress in establishing a legitimate state presence in the eastern part of the country; and in South Sudan the UN’s ambitious statebuilding project rapidly deteriorated into a civil war in 2013. And while the rise of peacebuilding within the UN system demonstrates a growing awareness of the need to look beyond purely state institutions when intervening in fragile settings, the gravitational pull of the state remains extremely powerful, and the UN’s track record is spotty at best. What does it mean to intervene in a fragile or “failed” state in the 21st Century? How can the UN absorb the evidence-based scholarship on non-state governance to shift its approaches to stabilization, peacebuilding, and statebuilding? What concepts and models could helpfully be advanced in the Secretary-General’s recent call for a “New Agenda for Peace”?