Most hated totally unfailed state (according to the Foreign Policy Magazine/Fund for Peace Failed States Index)

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According to the Foreign Policy Magazine/Fund for Peace Failed States Index, your options are:

Poll Results

OptionVotes
Australia 7
Switzerland 7
Ireland 6
Finland 3
Norway 2
New Zealand 1
Sweden 1


caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:13 (sixteen years ago)

in what insane way is ireland not a 'failed' state

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:14 (sixteen years ago)

In case anyone wants to discuss the more frivolous aspects of this study, the failed states are:

Somalia
Zimbabwe
Sudan
Chad
DR Congo
Iraq
Afghanistan
Central African Republic
Guinea
Pakistan
Ivory Coast
Haiti
Burma
Kenya (what happened? I am confused.)
Nigeria
Ethiopa
North Korea
Yemen
Bangladesh
East Timor

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:15 (sixteen years ago)

that's in order of failedness.

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:15 (sixteen years ago)

And a word from fallen soldier big Dom Passantino:

Yeah… you know how when you talk to people from Norway or Denmark or Finland they’re always on some jokey “Hahaha, everyone from Sweden is a cunt” tip, but you can see in their eyes they really actually do loathe every single human being from Sweden? This clip kinda proves why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fRNIdZe05I

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:17 (sixteen years ago)

ok- obviously, we're not going to make in onto that list any time soon, but FFS when is their data from?

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:18 (sixteen years ago)

anyway, don't hate any of the above states, but i'll vote for ireland because we shouldn't be there.

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:19 (sixteen years ago)

yeah, surprised to see iceland so low down their list. i mean, haven't they read michael lewis's searing expose?

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:19 (sixteen years ago)

I guess Australia's so high due to decent economy + isolation

wilter, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:45 (sixteen years ago)

voted australia btw

wilter, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:45 (sixteen years ago)

Ethiopa

whew, that was a close one!

nabisco, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 00:47 (sixteen years ago)

thirteen months of sunshne

blobfish russian (harbl), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 01:24 (sixteen years ago)

voted australia btw

Self hatin' roo.

seagulls are assholes (Trayce), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 05:11 (sixteen years ago)

; )

wilter, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 05:13 (sixteen years ago)

The list of actual failed states above is a bit odd. What definition of failed state are they using? Many of those countries are a bit rubbish in one way or another, but calling them "failed" suggests that the state has disintegrated (or come close to so doing). That's not really the case with Ethiopia, North Korea, Nigeria, or Kenya.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 09:47 (sixteen years ago)

Obviously the voters have not been to Sydney recently.

challop matters (King Boy Pato), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 09:50 (sixteen years ago)

Aren't most North Koreans starving or in concentration camps? Aren't North Korea dependent on foreign aid to feed their people? I'd call that fairly failed.

De Mysteriis Dom Passantino (jim), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 09:51 (sixteen years ago)

Yeah but the state is there, doing its stuff. People may be sad, but fuck them. It's not like Somalia, where the state does not exist, or Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the country is run as a colony.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:19 (sixteen years ago)

But I take your point. The whole "failed state" thing is open to two meanings - a state that does not deliver good stuff for its people, or a state that does not exist in any real sense. The article linked to leans towards the former.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:20 (sixteen years ago)

No, the report has an explicit definition: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/06/22/2009_failed_states_index_disorder_in_the_ranks

It then goes one to say the rankings are bullshit, but their working definition is at least plausible:

Failed states have two defining criteria: They deliver very low quantities and qualities of political goods to their citizens, and they have lost their monopoly on violence. Nation-states on the cusp of failure are either "weak" or "failing"—but not "failed." "Collapsed" ought to be reserved for geographical expressions without governments, such as Somalia.

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:22 (sixteen years ago)

OK, it doesn't say the rankings are bullshit, it says most of the countries it calls failed on the map are not in fact failed, which is weird.

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:25 (sixteen years ago)

caek i think that piece is a dissenting opinion about what the definition of a failed state should be. it does say that the rankings used a different rationale.

joe, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:30 (sixteen years ago)

i think i prefer the official rankings' broad inclusion of things like "human rights" versus that author's very dictator-friendly emphasis on the state's "monopoly on violence" as the ultimate test of non-failure.

joe, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:37 (sixteen years ago)

If you're going by the "monopoly on violence" criteria, surely there's no way NK or Burma can be considered failed states? The rest seem to qualify, more or less, although I don't know anything like as much as I should about Bangladesh.

N1ck (Upt0eleven), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 11:48 (sixteen years ago)

Reasons to hate them all:

Australia - drunken boorish arseholes
Finland - tweeists
Ireland - paedos
New Zealand - umm... a bit dull maybe?
Norway - probably some raping and pillaging back there somewhere
Sweden - sexual deviants
Switzerland - cowards

Desmond Decca Aitkenhead (Matt DC), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:02 (sixteen years ago)

what a pity blighty didn't make it to the top table, then we could respond in kind.

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:48 (sixteen years ago)

Switzerland is by far the one I hate the most here, for many fairly obvious reasons

Michael Philip Philip Philip philip a hoy hoy (country matters), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:49 (sixteen years ago)

I mean come on it's fucking objectionable whichever way you look at it

Michael Philip Philip Philip philip a hoy hoy (country matters), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:49 (sixteen years ago)

eh, the neutrality or the clocks?

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:52 (sixteen years ago)

Australia but I mainly hate Australia because really boring people from Scotland spend loads of money going there on holiday just so they can speak English in a place with a hot climate and that's really lame.

De Mysteriis Dom Passantino (jim), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:53 (sixteen years ago)

Or the libertarian crypto-fascist racist eyes-closed crypto-militant stockpiled hoarding privileged tosspottery of it all xp

Michael Philip Philip Philip philip a hoy hoy (country matters), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 12:54 (sixteen years ago)

I thought you'd left Oxbridge now?

Desmond Decca Aitkenhead (Matt DC), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 13:14 (sixteen years ago)

xp to joe, ah, I thought that guy was with the Fund for Peace (and therefore one of the report's authors), but in fact he's with the World Peace Foundation. Those peace people.

caek, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 13:23 (sixteen years ago)

lol Matt

Michael Philip Philip Philip philip a hoy hoy (country matters), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 13:36 (sixteen years ago)

If you're going by the "monopoly on violence" criteria, surely there's no way NK or Burma can be considered failed states? The rest seem to qualify, more or less, although I don't know anything like as much as I should about Bangladesh.

I don't think it is true of Ethiopia to any greater extent than it is true of, say, the USA.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Tuesday, 21 July 2009 14:26 (sixteen years ago)

i'd post something nice about switzerland (anyone from switzerland i've ever met has been very nice) but i'm still smarting from a passantino zing from opining that saudi arabia might be a cool place to work.

Bobkate Goldtwat (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 14:27 (sixteen years ago)

the irish. for st. patrick's day.

Batsman (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Tuesday, 21 July 2009 14:39 (sixteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Thursday, 30 July 2009 23:01 (sixteen years ago)

i suppose its unfair to blame an entire country for tuomassundae.jpg huh

MOAR HUMOR THAN A HUMAN(E) (jjjusten), Thursday, 30 July 2009 23:11 (sixteen years ago)

A Norwegian annoyed me tonight, so them.

Matt #2, Thursday, 30 July 2009 23:18 (sixteen years ago)

I'm not sure if Ireland counts as an unfailed state.

The Real Dirty Vicar, Friday, 31 July 2009 09:37 (sixteen years ago)

Can't say I hate any of these places, though I guess LJ otm regarding Swiss banks, but considering voting for Ireland just to take out my irritation for hearing about how (distant relative) is in a secretarial/admin job that would probably pay under 20k in the UK and is getting 45k for it

Then again since a lunch of two burgers + can of lager + can of coke cost 33 euro when we visited Dublin I guess they need it

(they were "gourmet" burgers - but of the 6 or so places serving lunch in the area we walked through they were all charging that kind of money)

a passing spacecadet, Friday, 31 July 2009 09:59 (sixteen years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Friday, 31 July 2009 23:01 (sixteen years ago)

I don't think it is true of Ethiopia to any greater extent than it is true of, say, the USA.

whoah, hold up, the US lacks, for instance, an Ogaden

nabisco, Friday, 31 July 2009 23:04 (sixteen years ago)

(^^ this is re: monopolies on violence)

nabisco, Friday, 31 July 2009 23:05 (sixteen years ago)

Aw cmon guys, we're not that bad!

seagulls are assholes (Trayce), Saturday, 1 August 2009 03:50 (sixteen years ago)


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