Traffic policeman (de facto authorities) in Sanaa, Yemen. Photo: Peter Salisbury
5. Conclusion: Towards a ‘Middle–Out’ Approach
This paper describes countries in the midst of fragmentary and stalled transformations of the state. They are caught between two ends of a spectrum, with the idealized ‘orderly state’ at one end and an imagined ‘chaos state’ at the other. The orderly state can be considered as a single, internationally and locally recognized political order that serves as a central regulatory node. The leadership (executive) controls and manages the formal bureaucracy (de jure and de facto authorities) in a manner that is responsive and accountable to the population, producing power and legitimacy that in turn help sustain the stability of the overall system. At the other end of the spectrum, the chaos state is where multiple actors make claims to legitimacy and enjoy the capabilities and power often associated with the state. The executive does not have a monopoly over legitimate violence, and lacks control over one or more significant geographic segments of the country. The formal bureaucracy has fragmented and weakened compared to the de facto authorities.
International policymakers often perceive countries such as Iraq and Yemen unambiguously as chaos states that serve as catalysts for extremism, destabilize their regions, disrupt trade and create space for organized crime. Such states produce humanitarian disasters and large numbers of refugees, and create a burden on foreign capitals. Hence the billions of dollars spent on attempting to transform supposed chaos states into orderly ones.
International policymakers often perceive countries such as Iraq and Yemen unambiguously as chaos states that serve as catalysts for extremism, destabilize their regions, disrupt trade and create space for organized crime.
But in reality, even the most disordered state, however far along the nominal spectrum towards chaos, possesses a political order of sorts. And in most such cases the state is undergoing a period of rapid and often violent transformation. It is important to note that, while worrying and disorienting, such processes of transformation are not unusual in the history of state-building and rebuilding.
International policymakers typically seek to transform countries such as Iraq and Yemen into archetypal orderly states. However, a binary distinction between chaos and order misses the reality that all states fall somewhere along a chaos–order spectrum. More critically, as this paper argues, the defining feature of a state’s position along that spectrum is the extent of the gap between the formal bureaucracy and the de facto authorities (and, in turn, the connectivity of both types of actor to the executive and society). The larger the gap, the closer the state moves towards the chaos end of the spectrum.
The current model of external intervention does not resolve this problem. It creates an artificial balance between a preferred ‘winner’ – a politician, organization or interest group selected by external actors – and other domestic rivals. It seeks to support and build the bureaucracy around the preferred candidate, while effectively outlawing and ignoring the work of de facto authorities. Often the actual outcome of such intervention is a stalled political transformation, as international actors refuse to recognize realities on the ground (i.e. the role of de facto authorities) and instead support favoured allies that have lost legitimacy, capability and power.
Yet Iraq and Yemen are examples of states where legitimacy, capability and power are not solely in the realm of either the executive or the formal bureaucracy. Instead, actors that provide services and offer protection compete for the population’s favour. To solidify their legitimacy based on this (often short-term) strategy, such actors typically seek to build a case for their legitimacy and to subjugate rivals via political and legal institutions. This mix of legitimacy markers ensures that the de facto authority can withstand various forms of internal pressure (protest movements or coups) and external pressure (foreign military campaigns) and maintain popular support. Actors that lack a sufficient mix of these markers do not last as long, ISIS being one example.
Legitimacy is intrinsically linked to capability, which in the cases of de facto authorities in Iraq and Yemen includes military and economic/rent-generating capacity. The actors with the most influence are those capable of mobilizing fighters, winning wars despite high attrition rates, developing sophisticated economic practices, and controlling territory to tax local populations. In Iraq and Yemen, many such actors are not part of the formal bureaucracy or its implementing bodies. Even though the official authorities are often better trained and equipped than informal or non-state actors, they are often unable or unwilling to perform the essential functions of the state. The convergence and overlap of legitimacy and capability produce power. Local de facto authorities enjoy a mix of coercive, legal-institutional and persuasive power that at times is greater than that of the formal bureaucracy, moving the state towards the chaos end of the spectrum.
De facto authorities in Iraq and Yemen are thus faced with a dilemma: they seek to become more formalized state actors but are not allowed to do so. This is despite the fact that they enjoy sufficient legitimacy, capability and power. To overcome this obstacle, they seek both to capture the official bureaucracy when possible and to build parallel state structures as insurance. They become neither state nor non-state actors, but rather hybrid armed actors that at times cooperate and at other times compete with the formal state. In both Iraq and Yemen, as this paper has discussed, hybrid actors such as the PMU and the Houthis in effect keep one foot in the state and one foot outside it, while seeking broader legitimization.
Most current policy proscriptions involve a binary choice between either a ‘top–down’ or ‘bottom–up’ state-building approach. Top–down approaches include supporting sympathetic elites who promise reform, and building the capacity of bureaucrats often tied to the formal bureaucracy. Bottom–up approaches often stress building local capacity to manage and implement one-off projects or basic economic activities such as agricultural production. While both of these tracks are important, they all too often miss out the middle – the gap in legitimacy, capability and power between the formal bureaucracy and the de facto authorities. As power resides in the de facto authorities but the human capital required to build institutions is stored within the bureaucracy, what is needed is an approach that deals with these two crucial middle layers of the state. This is where our proposed ‘middle–out’ approach comes in.
A successful middle–out approach entails enhancing the links between elements of both the formal bureaucracy and the de facto authorities, while establishing and enforcing an accountability mechanism aimed at producing new ‘connective tissue’ between the actors involved. Such work will be intricate, in part led by the interests of the local parties, and will take time to produce results. But it is more likely to lead to a coming together of agendas and efforts, rather than to a violent divergence in legitimacy, capability and power.
We make two recommendations in particular for achieving this outcome:
1. Identify the formal bureaucracy and de facto authorities.
Rather than relying on elite actors that external players agree should rule, and hope that the rest falls into place, international policymakers need to carefully analyse which actors are actually producing outcomes on the ground. This process should include identifying those institutions within the formal bureaucracy that can serve as agents (or institutions) of change, as well as those that are marred by inefficiency and/or corruption and have therefore become chokepoints in the system. The relationships between these actors across different political factions, and with the executive and society at large, need to be assessed.
The actors best placed to implement such interactions are local intermediaries from the formal bureaucracy with a proven track record of working across both visible, formal institutions and the murky world of informal institutions that operate in parallel with them. International actors should facilitate this process by helping to bring together the most effective actors from the bureaucracy and the de facto authorities to work together in each ministry and government agency.
In Yemen this could include, for example, asking Ministry of Health officials to work with local non-state healthcare providers, multilateral organizations (such as the UN) and state institutions to improve service delivery, as already happens in many areas. In Iraq, the process would require mapping out all institutions in each government ministry and agency, and assigning measures of effectiveness to them, to better understand where action can progress and where there are roadblocks.
In both countries, the process would require analysis of the key state, non-state and hybrid armed actors in each locality; the different groups (including NGOs) delivering basic services such as water, healthcare and electricity; and the groups providing security and justice. Analysis of the staffing of local, regional and government institutions, regardless of location, would also be required. Such analysis should be built around a mix of polling and assessment of healthcare, water and electricity provision, sanitation and other forms of service delivery to establish a picture of what ‘functionings’ are being achieved, and by whom. Using a data-led approach, a more panoramic picture can be built than through irregular anecdotal reporting.
2. Facilitate rather than seek to shape (and thus risk stalling) transformation. Change incentives from ones achieved by violent competition to ones involving bargaining under a mechanism of accountability.
The perception of chaos in Iraq and Yemen is indicative of a fragmentary process of political transformation in which the temptation for external powers is to pick ‘winners’ that they think will best suit their interests. While there is an international legal (and normative) imperative for states to support elected, internationally recognized governments, there is a risk that, in doing so, they catalyse competition between executives and other groups. As this paper has discussed, supporting elites and de jure actors with waning legitimacy and/or capability and power has increased the gap between formal institutions and de facto authorities. This has stalled prospects for political transformation.
Instead, international policymakers should guide such transformation by serving as referees in support of a process of bargaining and integration that rewards cooperation, and that applies punitive measures where actors violate the rule of law and/or cause harm to society. In the Middle East, political settlements that have incorporated armed groups into state structures (notably in Iran and Saudi Arabia) have never held such groups accountable to civilian governance structures.94 The role of the international policymaker in this process is to ensure that transformations occur within a context of accountability to society and the rule of law.
International policymakers should guide such transformation by serving as referees in support of a process of bargaining and integration that rewards cooperation, and that applies punitive measures where actors violate the rule of law and/or cause harm to society.
In Iraq, this would mean supporting and forming a working group made up of judges and lawyers from the judiciary; parliamentarians; and technocrats from each ministry, the central bank, the integrity commission, the human rights commission and each governorate council. This group should also include de facto authorities. The working group would interpret legal codes and precedents, provide legal rulings and independently monitor the integration and transformation process to bridge the gap between the de facto authorities and the formal bureaucracy. This group would be tasked with speaking to all actors that command sufficient legitimacy, capabilities and power, to ensure that such actors respect the rule of law and do not cause harm to society. The trade-off would be receipt of a piece of the national pie in exchange for submitting to Iraqi law, government bodies and society.
International policymakers, in conjunction with this proposed working group, would have several bargaining chips. First, they could expose any group(s) that refused to submit to the rule of law, and develop legal enforcement measures to clamp down upon illegal activities. Since domestic legitimacy is important for all actors, the ability to threaten a group’s power would provide some leverage to ensure compliance. Second, the working group could use the state’s financial powers (and the resources of international stakeholders) to reward compliant groups.
In Yemen, non-receipt of state salary payments is a key political issue. As a first step, international policy intervention could usefully involve the formation of working groups made up of staff from the rival central bank institutions to survey access to formal financial institutions nationwide. The groups could then begin to build financial services of benefit to all Yemenis. Such services could include e-money for paying state salaries or social welfare benefits. This would have the added benefit of boosting cooperation between armed and other groups.
These recommendations appear to reflect lofty goals, and there is an argument that they would be difficult to implement and measure. But, as we demonstrate, it is possible to map legitimacy, capabilities and – in effect – power as a series of metrics over time. This means that, during a political transformation, external donors and political sponsors could monitor a series of issues and tie funding and other forms of support to them. Rather than defining ‘success’ as the holding of an election, for example, real success would consist of progress on multiple metrics over a period of several years, along with anecdotal measures of progress in cooperation between the different actors.
94 Mansour, R. and Eaton, T. (2019), ‘Rethink State-building in the Middle East and North Africa’, Ideas for Modernizing the Rules-based International Order, Chatham House Expert Perspectives 2019, https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/rethink-state-building-middle-east-and-north-africa.