Discarding the Failed State Thesis:Neo-Weberian Institutionalism as an Alternative Approach to Policy Formulation

States are the only contemporary political organisations that enjoy aunique legal status under International Law – sovereignty – and do playa major role in the creation and modification of all other public internationalentities. States exist to provide a decentralised method of deliveringpolitical (public) goods to the citizens living within its designatedterritory, and states are assumed as “failed” when they can no longerdeliver these goods, such as security. It is argued that the categorisationof states as either functioning or failing by donors and policymakers isreductive, non-contextualised and ahistorical, resulting in a monolithiccoat being thrown over disparate problems that require tailored solutions.Countering the limitations of the failed state thesis, this articledraws on neo-Weberian institutionalism, characterised by the state’scapacity to provide political goods to its citizens based on its perceivablelegitimacy, to provide an alternative approach to policy formulationutilising Somalia since 1991 as a case study