Failed State of Political Theory

Elden also writes about Somalia. Here is where much of the American debates over “public reason” clearly are artificial. All states by definition arise out of “failed states,” but you have endless discussions on “a priori conditions” or states of nature, when you have very real conditions of building up political institutions in many places across the world. I have problems with the moniker of the “failed state,” but somehow Somalia’s attempt to build any stable institutions in light of a whole history that I can’t revisit here is little discussed, but we see endless papers, say, on how to balance French Canadian interests against the “universal” interests of the Canadian state…