| Publication |
2009.
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| Summary/Abstract |
With the onset of civil war in the early 1990s, Algeria appeared to join the growing list of failed African states. The idea of state failure has developed over the past 20 years and is now common currency amongst academics and political leaders alike. The aim of this article is to investigate the analytical usefulness of the academic state failure literature, and its ability to explain the onset and development of socio-political crises in post-colonial African states. The article identifies two important weaknesses in this literature: its dichotomisation of the international and domestic spheres, and the emphasis on domestic factors in its explanation of why such crises occur. Through its analysis of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) and World Bank's interventions in Algeria between 1994 and 1999 the article substantiates the criticisms it makes of this literature.
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