A discussion of Woodward’s book, The Ideology of Failed States (CUP 2017), an analysis of the significant but counterproductive role played by the concept of failed states in shaping international order and intervention since the early 1990s.  The consequences of the lost opportunity to change the international system created after World War II for fundamentally new conditions is borne by countries called failed or fragile states.

Susan L. Woodward is professor of political science at The Graduate Center, City University of New York.  Previously professor at Northwestern University, Williams College, and Yale University, senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, 1990-1999, then at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, London, on a DFID-funded project on conflict, security, and development, she created an Analysis Unit for the Office of the SRSG, UNPROFOR, in 1994. In addition to The Ideology of Failed States: Why Intervention Fails, she is the author of Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Brookings Press, 1995), and Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Princeton University Press, 1995).