Susan L. Woodward is a professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has more than twelve years' policy experience, including nine from 1990 at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, where she wrote Balkan Tragedy (1994). Woodward has been interviewed frequently on television and radio, and has given congressional and House of Lords testimony. She created an analysis unit for the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) during the Bosnian war in 1994, and in 1999, the initial research program on conflict, security, and development for the Department for International Development, including advice on its aid to Kosovo and Moldova, at King's College London.

'The Ideology of Failed States reflects a lifetime of professional engagement with the subject of intervention in weak, war-torn and fragile states. Constructed as an extended critique of the concept of 'state failure', its institutionalisation, and the uses to which the term has been put, mainly by Western governments and Western-dominated institutions, Woodward persuasively and very effectively demonstrates that the concept of state failure is not only conceptually vague but also empirically thin and politically provocative. She has succeeded in lifting what she describes as the 'veil of self-evidence' that typically surrounds the use of the concept in public discourse and, especially, in policy-making circles.' Mats Berdal, Director of Conflict, Security and Development Research Group (CSDRG), King's College London

• 1. Introduction; 2. What's in a name?; 3. History of a concept; 4. State-building as solution; 5. Building an international apparatus for state-building; 6. The real problem of failed states; 7. Consequences; 8. Neither security nor development.

Susan L. Woodward is a professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has more than twelve years' policy experience, including nine from 1990 at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, where she wrote Balkan Tragedy (1994). Woodward has been interviewed frequently on television and radio, and has given congressional and House of Lords testimony. She created an analysis unit for the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) during the Bosnian war in 1994, and in 1999, the initial research program on conflict, security, and development for the Department for International Development, including advice on its aid to Kosovo and Moldova, at King's College London.

'The Ideology of Failed States reflects a lifetime of professional engagement with the subject of intervention in weak, war-torn and fragile states. Constructed as an extended critique of the concept of 'state failure', its institutionalisation, and the uses to which the term has been put, mainly by Western governments and Western-dominated institutions, Woodward persuasively and very effectively demonstrates that the concept of state failure is not only conceptually vague but also empirically thin and politically provocative. She has succeeded in lifting what she describes as the 'veil of self-evidence' that typically surrounds the use of the concept in public discourse and, especially, in policy-making circles.' Mats Berdal, Director of Conflict, Security and Development Research Group (CSDRG), King's College London

• 1. Introduction; 2. What's in a name?; 3. History of a concept; 4. State-building as solution; 5. Building an international apparatus for state-building; 6. The real problem of failed states; 7. Consequences; 8. Neither security nor development.

Susan L. Woodward is a professor of political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has more than twelve years' policy experience, including nine from 1990 at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, where she wrote Balkan Tragedy (1994). Woodward has been interviewed frequently on television and radio, and has given congressional and House of Lords testimony. She created an analysis unit for the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) during the Bosnian war in 1994, and in 1999, the initial research program on conflict, security, and development for the Department for International Development, including advice on its aid to Kosovo and Moldova, at King's College London.

'The Ideology of Failed States reflects a lifetime of professional engagement with the subject of intervention in weak, war-torn and fragile states. Constructed as an extended critique of the concept of 'state failure', its institutionalisation, and the uses to which the term has been put, mainly by Western governments and Western-dominated institutions, Woodward persuasively and very effectively demonstrates that the concept of state failure is not only conceptually vague but also empirically thin and politically provocative. She has succeeded in lifting what she describes as the 'veil of self-evidence' that typically surrounds the use of the concept in public discourse and, especially, in policy-making circles.' Mats Berdal, Director of Conflict, Security and Development Research Group (CSDRG), King's College London

• 1. Introduction; 2. What's in a name?; 3. History of a concept; 4. State-building as solution; 5. Building an international apparatus for state-building; 6. The real problem of failed states; 7. Consequences; 8. Neither security nor development.