Birth Legacies and State Failure

Abstract

We argue patterns of state failure are influenced by variation in how states emerged as independent political actors. In particular, states with positive birth legacies, those whose emergence required relatively high levels of capacity and legitimacy, should be less likely to experience state failure than countries that experienced less auspicious births. We assess this claim on the universe of states in the international system between 1950 and 2002 with multistate duration models that estimate the probabilities states transition into and out of periods of failure. We find that states with positive birth legacies are less likely to experience state failure and that this relationship is driven by states with positive birth legacies being able to more quickly transition from failure back to being functioning states. Our findings offer evidence that state failure is usefully thought of in the context of state-making processes and show that how states emerge as independent actors influences phenomena central to comparative and international politics.