¹ Nick Grono, ‘Fragile States and Conflict’, Speech to Institut Royal Supérieur de Défense, Brussels, 27 March 2010, available at: {http://old.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/speeches/2010/fragile-states-and-conflict.html} accessed 23 September 2016; Sobek, David, ‘Masters of their domains: the role of state capacity in civil wars’, Journal of Peace Research, 47:3 (2010), pp. 267–271 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² For an overview, see Blendi Kajsiu et al., Albania – a Weak Democracy, a Weak State (Tirana: Albanian Institute for International Studies, 2003).

³ Ahram, Ariel I., ‘Learning to live with militias: Toward a critical policy on state frailty’, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 5:2 (2011), pp. 175–192 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Menkhaus, Ken, ‘International peacebuilding and the dynamics of local and national reconciliation in Somalia’, International Peacekeeping, 3:1 (1996), pp. 42–67 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴ See, for example, James Putzel and Jonathan Di John, ‘Meeting the Challenges of Crisis States’, Crisis States Research Centre Report (London: London School of Economics, 2012); Goldstone, Jack A. et al., ‘A global model for forecasting political instability’, American Journal of Political Science, 54:1 (2010), pp. 190–208 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vinci, Anthony, ‘Anarchy, failed states, and armed groups: Reconsidering conventional analysis’, International Studies Quarterly, 52:2 (2008), pp. 295–314 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ See, for example, Takeyh, Ray and Gvosdev, Nikolas, ‘Do terrorist networks need a home?’, The Washington Quarterly, 25:3 (2002), pp. 97–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁶ See Evans, Gareth, The Responsibility to Protect: Ending Mass Atrocity Crimes Once and For All (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

⁷ Important exceptions, which have asked related (but distinct) questions, include Bethany Lacina, ‘Explaining the severity of civil wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50:2 (2006), pp. 276–89; Reno, William, ‘Explaining patterns of violence in collapsed states’, Contemporary Security Policy, 30:2 (2009), pp. 356–374 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Phrase taken from Robert Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

⁹ For a related critique, see David Carment et al., Security, Development and the Fragile State: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), ch. 2.

¹⁰ Robert Rotberg, ‘The failure and collapse of nation-states: Breakdown, prevention, and repair’, in Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail, p. 1.

¹¹ Bates, Robert H., ‘State failure’, Annual Review of Political Science, 11 (2008), pp. 1–12 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹³ State Failure Task Force, ‘State Failure Task Force Report: Phase III Findings’ (30 September 2000).

¹⁴ See discussion in Ezrow, Natasha and Frantz, Erica, ‘Revisiting the concept of the failed state: Bringing the state back in’, Third World Quarterly, 34:8 (2013), p. 1324 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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¹⁸ Sambanis, Nicholas, ‘What is civil war? Conceptual and empirical complexities of an operational definition’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 48:6 (2004), pp. 814–858 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁹ On occasion, I use the terms ‘dissolution of state capacity’ and ‘collapse of state capacity’ interchangeably. These terms should not be conflated with Robert Rotberg’s very specific use of the term ‘collapsed state’ in Rotberg, ‘The failure and collapse of nation-states’, pp. 9–10.

²⁰ See Jonathan K. Hanson and Rachel Sigman, ‘Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions: Measuring State Capacity for Comparative Political Research’, Working Paper (Syracuse University, 2013); Daniel Lambach et al., ‘An Anchor for a Dazzling Debate: Conceptualizing State Collapse’, Working Paper (University of Duisburg-Essen, 2013); Hillel David Soifer, ‘Measuring state capacity in contemporary Latin America’, Revista de Ciencia Política, 32:3 (2012), pp. 585–98.

²¹ Migdal, Joel S., Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 28 Google Scholar.

²² For overviews of the approaches, see Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 44–6; Kubik, Jan, ‘How to study civil society: the state of the art and what to do next’, East European Politics and Societies, 19:1 (2005), pp. 105–120 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²³ See Putnam, Robert, ‘Tuning in, tuning out: the strange disappearance of social capital in America’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 28:4 (1995), pp. 664–683 Google Scholar; Woolcock, Michael and Narayan, Deepa, ‘Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy’, World Bank Research Observer, 15:2 (2000), pp. 229–231 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina, ‘Making sense of the civic engagement debate’, in Theda Skocpol and Morris Fiorina (eds), Civic Engagement in American Democracy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999/2004), pp. 14–16.

²⁵ Migdal, Joel S., State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁶ See Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe, ch. 3.

²⁷ Sobek, ‘Masters of their domains’; Vinci, ‘Anarchy, failed states, and armed groups’.

²⁸ See Željko Branović and Sven Chojnacki, ‘The logic of security markets: Security governance in failed states’, Security Dialogue, 42:6 (2011), pp. 553–69; Vadim Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002); Mark R. Beissinger and Crawford Young, ‘Convergence to crisis: Pre-independence state legacies and post-independence state breakdown in Africa and Eurasia’, in Mark R. Beissinger and Crawford Young (eds), Beyond State Crisis? Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002).

²⁹ See Posen, Barry, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’, Survival, 35:1 (1993), pp. 27–47 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nelson Kasfir, ‘Domestic anarchy, security dilemmas, and violent predation: Causes of failure’, in Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail. Note that, in practice, it is often difficult to draw a clear line between predatory and protective motives.

³⁰ See, for example, Mueller, John, ‘The banality of “ethnic war”’, International Security, 25:1 (2000), pp. 42–70 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaldor, Mary, New and Old Wars (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

³¹ Paul Collier, ‘Economic causes of civil conflict and their implications for policy’, in Chester A. Crocker et al. (eds), Leashing the Dogs of War: Conflict Management in a Divided World (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press, 2007); Lichbach, Mark Irving, The Rebel’s Dilemma (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Moore, Will H., ‘Rational rebels: Overcoming the free-rider problem’, Political Research Quarterly, 48:2 (1995), pp. 417–454 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³³ See, in particular, Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).

³⁴ Victor H. Asal et al., ‘Building terrorism from social ties: the dark side of social capital’, Civil Wars, 16:4 (2014), pp. 402–24; Humphreys, Macartan and Weinstein, Jeremy M., ‘Who fights? The determinants of participation in civil war’, American Journal of Political Science, 52:2 (2008), pp. 436–455 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Donatella della Porta, ‘Recruitment processes in clandestine political organizations: Italian left-wing terrorism’, International Social Movement Research, 1 (1988), pp. 155–69.

³⁵ Parkinson, ‘Organizing rebellion’; McDoom, Omar Shahabudin, ‘Antisocial capital: a profile of Rwandan genocide perpetrators’ social networks’, Journal of Conflict Resolution, 58:5 (2014), pp. 865–893 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ See Posen, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict’; Rose, William, ‘The security dilemma and ethnic conflict: Some new hypotheses’, Security Studies, 9:4 (2000), pp. 1–51 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lake, David. A. and Rothchild, Donald, ‘Containing fear: the origins and management of ethnic conflict’, International Security, 21:2 (1996), pp. 41–75 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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³⁸ Susan L. Woodward, ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina: How Not to End a Civil War’ (New York: Institute on War and Peace Studies, Columbia University, February 1997). Later version published in Barbara F. Walter and Jack Syder (eds), Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999).

³⁹ Peter Cole, ‘Borderline Chaos? Securing Libya’s Periphery’, The Carnegie Papers (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012).

⁴⁰ Some describe such an arrangement as ‘totalitarianism’. See definitions discussed in Juan J. Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000), pp. 65–6.

⁴¹ Mann, Michael, ‘The autonomous power of the state: Its origins, mechanisms and results’, European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie, 25:2 (1984), pp. 185–213 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁴³ Hannah Arendt in O’Kane, Rosemary H. T., Terror, Force, and States: The Path from Modernity (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1996), pp. 79–80 Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Gledhill, John, ‘Assessing (in)security after the Arab Spring: Editor’s introduction’, PS: Political Science and Politics, 46:4 (2013), p. 711 Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe.

⁴⁶ Kasfir, ‘Domestic anarchy, security dilemmas, and violent predation’, p. 62.

⁴⁷ For a chart reflecting conflict escalation and de-escalation in Burma/Myanmar, see: {http://ucdp.uu.se/?id=1#country/775} accessed 30 September 2016. For a general discussion of the relationship between natural disasters, state capacity, and armed conflict, see Nel, Philip and Righarts, Marjolein, ‘Natural disasters and the risk of violent civil conflict’, International Studies Quarterly, 52:1 (2008), pp. 159–185 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁸ For discussions of Burma/Myanmar that are respectively consistent with, and contrary to, this understanding, see Jones, Lee, ‘Explaining Myanmar’s regime transition: the periphery is central’, Democratization, 21:5 (2014), pp. 781–782 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Seekins, Donald M., ‘State, society and natural disaster: Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (Burma)’, Asian Journal of Social Science, 37:5 (2009), pp. 717–737 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁵⁰ For discussions of non-state governance in frail states see, for example, Menkhaus, Ken, ‘Governance without government in Somalia: Spoilers, state building, and the politics of coping’, International Security, 31:3 (2007), pp. 74–106 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Alexandra Lewis, Security, Clans and Tribes: Unstable Governance in Somaliland, Yemen and the Gulf of Aden (Houndmills: Palgrave, 2015); Risse, Thomas, ‘Governance in areas of limited statehood’, in David Levi-Faur (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar.

⁵¹ Mampilly, Zachariah Cherian, Rebel Rulers: Insurgent Governance and Civilian Life During War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

⁵² See treatments of racketeers in William Reno, ‘Mafiya troubles, warlord crises’, in Mark Beissinger and Crawford Young (eds), Beyond State Crisis? Post-Colonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002); Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs.

⁵³ Menkhaus, ‘Governance without government in Somalia’; Laila al-Zwaini, ‘State and Non-State Justice in Yemen’, Proceedings of Conference on the Relationship between State and Non-State Justice Systems in Afghanistan (Kabul: United States Institute of Peace, 2006); Volker Boege, Traditional Approaches to Conflict Transformation – Potentials and Limits (Berlin: Berghof Research Center for Constructive Conflict Management, 2006).

⁵⁴ Zartman, I. William, ‘Introduction: Posing the problem of state collapse’, in I. William Zartman (ed.), Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1995), p. 1 Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ For overviews, based on the Afghan case, see Erica Gaston et al., Lessons Learned on Traditional Dispute Resolution in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2013); Noah Coburn and John Dempsey, Informal Dispute Resolution in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2010).

⁵⁶ Menkhaus, ‘International peacebuilding’.

⁵⁷ Boege, Traditional Approaches to Conflict Transformation, p. 7; Babo-Soares, Dionísio, ‘ Nahe Biti: the philosophy and process of grassroots reconciliation (and justice) in East Timor’, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, 5:1 (2004), pp. 15–33 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁸ Menkhaus, ‘Governance without government in Somalia’.

⁵⁹ See Baz Lecocq et al., ‘One hippopotamus and eight blind analysts: a multivocal analysis of the 2012 political crisis in the divided republic of Mali’, Review of African Political Economy, 40:137 (2013), pp. 343–57.

⁶⁰ Ahram, ‘Learning to live with militias’; Menkhaus, ‘International peacebuilding’.

⁶¹ Fergus Kerrigan (ed.), Informal Justice Systems: Charting a Course for Human Rights-Based Engagement (New York: United Nations Development Program, 2012); Thomas Barfield et al., The Clash of Two Goods: State and Non-State Dispute Resolution in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2006).

⁶² Gaston et al., Lessons Learned; Boege, Traditional Approaches to Conflict Transformation.

⁶³ Seawright, Jason and Gerring, John, ‘Case selection techniques in case study research: a menu of qualitative and quantitative options’, Political Research Quarterly, 61:2 (2008), pp. 300–301 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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⁶⁵ Interviews were conducted on the ground in Tbilisi (Georgia), Tirana (Albania), London (UK), and also by telephone, between June 2014 and January 2015. Interviewees were purposively chosen for their experience and/or knowledge of the phenomena under investigation. All interviews were conducted by the author, sometimes in the presence of a translator.

⁶⁶ This draws on Hanson and Sigman, ‘Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions’, pp. 6–7.

⁶⁷ For a discussion of how extractive capacity can be measured, see Soifer, ‘Measuring state capacity in contemporary Latin America’, pp. 594–5.

⁶⁸ See discussion in Hanson and Sigman, ‘Leviathan’s Latent Dimensions’, p. 4.

⁶⁹ Since the UCDP has not recorded any conflict fatalities in the case of Albania (due to the low level thereof), I do not report UCDP figures for that case.

⁷⁰ Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, Conflict Barometer 2008 (University of Heidelberg, 2008), p. ii.

⁷¹ Beissinger and Young, ‘Convergence to crisis’, pp. 26–7.

⁷² Brubaker, Rogers, ‘Nationhood and the national question in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Eurasia: an institutionalist account’, Theory and Society, 23:1 (1994), pp. 47–78 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷³ Pavel K. Baev, ‘Civil wars in Georgia: Corruption breeds violence’, in Jan Koehler and Christoph Zürcher (eds), Potentials of Disorder: Explaining Conflict and Stability in the Caucasus and in the Former Yugoslavia (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003), p. 129.

⁷⁴ Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), pp. 315–16; Mars, Gerald and Altman, Yochanan, ‘The cultural bases of Soviet Georgia’s second economy’, Soviet Studies, 35:4 (1983), pp. 546–560 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also, interviews with a parliamentarian from Georgia’s transitional government, and a Georgian writer, Tbilisi.

⁷⁵ Interview with a local political analyst, Tbilisi.

⁷⁶ Interview with a Georgian political activist, Tbilisi.

⁷⁷ Slade, Gavin, ‘Georgia and thieves-in-law’, Global Crime, 8:3 (2007), pp. 271–276 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Also, interview with a Georgian expert in organized crime, Tbilisi.

⁷⁸ Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, pp. 309–10. Also based on an interview with a former parliamentarian / political analyst, Tbilisi.

⁷⁹ Jones, Stephen, Georgia: A Political History since Independence (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013), pp. 41–45 Google Scholar; John M. Cotter, ‘Cultural security dilemmas and ethnic conflict in Georgia’, Journal of Conflict Studies, 19:1 (1999), online publication.

⁸⁰ Jonathan Wheatley, Georgia from National Awakening to Rose Revolution: Delayed Transition in the Former Soviet Union (Burlington: Ashgate, 2005), pp. 41–3; Cornell, Svante E., Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus (Surrey: Curzon, 2001), pp. 148–149 Google Scholar.

⁸¹ Toft, Monica, ‘Multinationality, regions and state-building: the failed transition in Georgia’, Regional & Federal Studies, 11:3 (2001), pp. 123–142 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁸² Jones, Georgia, pp. 43–5; Cotter, ‘Cultural security dilemmas and ethnic conflict in Georgia’.

⁸³ Interview with a senior member of the transitional government, Tbilisi.

⁸⁴ Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, The Former Soviet Union in Transition, Volume I (Washington, DC: United States Congress, 1993), p. 25.

⁸⁵ Jones, Georgia, pp. 59–60.

⁸⁶ It is estimated that the shadow economy accounted for 24.9 per cent of Georgia’s GDP in 1989–90, and that this figure increased to an average of 43.6 per cent between 1990 and 1993. Friedrich Schneider and Dominik Enste, ‘Shadow Economies Around the World: Size, Causes, and Consequences’, IMF Working Paper WP/00/26 (Washington, DC: International Monetary Fund, 2000), p. 10.

⁸⁷ Despite assumptions of a legislative void in Georgia, a member of Gamsakhurdia’s government told the author that he and his colleagues did pass a significant number of laws during their limited time in power. Interview, Tbilisi.

⁸⁸ Interview with a former Unit Director of the Supreme Soviet, Tbilisi.

⁸⁹ Baev, ‘Civil wars in Georgia’, p. 131.

⁹⁰ Driscoll, Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States, p. 67.

⁹¹ See Fuller, Elizabeth, ‘Paramilitary forces dominate fighting in Transcaucasus’, RFE/RL Research Report, 2:25 (1993), pp. 74–82 Google Scholar.

⁹² Driscoll, Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States, p. 100. In this statement, Driscoll is referring to militia mobilisation in both of the cases he discusses: Georgia and Tajikistan.

⁹³ Cheterian, Vicken, War and Peace in the Caucasus: Russia’s Troubled Frontier (London: Hurst & Co., 2008), p. 186 Google Scholar.

⁹⁴ Formally, the National Guard was a state institution. In practice, however, it functioned as an autonomous paramilitary under the command of Tengiz Kitovani.

⁹⁵ Ioseliani in Gavin Slade, ‘No country for made men: the decline of the Mafia in post-Soviet Georgia’, Law & Society Review, 46:3 (2012), pp. 637–8.

⁹⁶ Interviews with a Georgian expert in organised crime, and a local political analyst, Tbilisi.

⁹⁷ Based on author interviews with a former senior defence official, and local political analysts, Tbilisi. Also see discussion in Driscoll, Warlords and Coalition Politics in Post-Soviet States, ch. 4.

⁹⁸ Watch, Human Rights, ‘Georgia/Abkhazia: Violations of the laws of war and Russia’s role in the conflict’, Human Rights Watch Arms Project, 7:7 (1995)Google Scholar.

⁹⁹ Demetriou, Spyros, ‘Rising from the ashes? The difficult (re)birth of the Georgian state’, Development and Change, 33:5 (2002), p. 876 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ For contemporaneous accounts of the clashes of December 1991, see Leslie Shepherd, ‘Rival troops battle in Georgian capital’, Associated Press (22 December 1991); AP Writer, ‘Gamsakhurdia flees Tbilisi; residents return to shattered homes’, Associated Press (6 January 1992).

¹⁰¹ For an overview of the resistance in Samegrelo, see Suzanne Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post-Soviet Disorder (London: Zed Books, 1994), ch. 5. For a selection of contemporaneous reports, see ‘Separatist unrest corrodes Georgia’s hope for future’, The Guardian (22 August 1992); Liam McDowall, ‘Georgian troops clash on retreat from Abkhazia’, Associated Press Worldstream (1 October 1993).

¹⁰² Billingsley, Dodge, ‘Interviews with Tengiz Sigua and Jaba Ioseliani’, The Harriman Review, 13 (2001), p. 27 Google Scholar.

¹⁰³ Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars, pp. 125–6.

¹⁰⁴ Stefan Wolff, ‘Georgia: Abkhazia and South Ossetia’, Encyclopedia Princetoniensis: The Princeton Encyclopedia of Self-Determination, available at: {http://pesd.princeton.edu/?q=node/274} accessed 26 May 2016.

¹⁰⁵ See Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars, ch. 5; Baev, ‘Civil wars in Georgia’; Human Rights Watch, ‘Georgia/Abkhazia’.

¹⁰⁶ Available at: {http://ucdp.uu.se/#country/372} accessed 27 September 2016.

¹⁰⁷ Zürcher, The Post-Soviet Wars, pp. 142–3, reports that the Abkhaz conflict cost up to 10,000 lives, the South Ossetian war saw 500–600 deaths, and the confrontation between Zviadists and the Mkhedrioni / National Guard saw around 2,120 fatalities.

¹⁰⁸ See Tishkov and BKZ in supplementary material for Sambanis, ‘What is civil war?’, available at: {http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0022002704269355/suppl_file/Sambanis_Data.zip} accessed 13 December 2016.

¹⁰⁹ Available at: {http://data.worldbank.org/country/Georgia} accessed 27 September 2016.

¹¹⁰ Cited in Thomas Greene, ‘Internal displacement in the North Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia’, in Roberta Cohen and Francis M. Deng (eds), The Forsaken People: Case Studies of the Internally Displaced (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998), p. 284.

¹¹¹ Fatos Tarifa, ‘The human dimension of de-communization in post-communist societies’, Helsinki Monitor, 5:2 (1994), p. 62.

¹¹² Julie Gonce, ‘Anne-Marie Autissier: “Albania was the North Korea of its time”’, Cafebabel (2009), available at: {http://www.cafebabel.co.uk/society/article/anne-marie-autissier-albania-was-the-north-korea-of-its-time.html} accessed 26 May 2016.

¹¹³ Bernd J. Fischer, ‘Enver Hoxha and the Stalinist dictatorship in Albania’, in Bernd J. Fischer (ed.), Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South Eastern Europe (London: Purdue University Press, and C. Hurst & Co., 2007), p. 263.

¹¹⁴ Library of Congress, Federal Research Division, Albania: A Country Study, ed. Raymond Zickel and Walter Iwaskiw (Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1994), pp. 227–8. Also, according to a former government minister now writer, Albania was the only European state in which the communist party controlled all newspapers. Interview with the author, Tirana.

¹¹⁵ Helga Turku, Isolationist States in an Interdependent World (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), p. 88; Julian Birch, ‘The Albanian political experience’, Government and Opposition, 6:3 (1971), p. 366.

¹¹⁶ Interviews with a former ambassador, and two former government ministers now economists, Tirana.

¹¹⁷ Turku, Isolationist States in an Interdependent World, p. 85.

¹¹⁸ Russell King and Nicola Mai, Out Of Albania: From Crisis Migration to Social Inclusion in Italy (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008/11), p. 35.

¹¹⁹ Interviews with a local journalist, and a former ambassador, Tirana.

¹²⁰ Interview with a local journalist, Tirana.

¹²¹ Nigel Hawkes, ‘In the Stalinist deep freeze’, The Globe and Mail (5 January 1990).

¹²² Tony Smith, ‘Communists’ win leaves Albania more polarized, violence possible’, The Associated Press (1 April 1991).

¹²³ Artan Fuga, Les mots dans la communication politique en Albanie (Paris: Harmattan, 2003), pp. 138–41.

¹²⁴ United States, Department of State, ‘Acting Secretary Kimmitt Meets with Albanian Democratic Leaders Berisha and Pashko’ (State 094948, March 1991). Supplied to the author following a Freedom of Information request.

¹²⁵ Gramoz Pashko, ‘Obstacles to economic reform in Albania’, Europe-Asia Studies, 45:5 (1993), p. 907.

¹²⁶ Instituti I Statistikes, ‘Statistika nr. 1: Njoftime, analiza e te dhena statistikore periodike’ (Tirana: Government of Albania, 1993), p. 16.

¹²⁷ Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity (London: Hurst, 1997), p. 75.

¹²⁸ Brenda Fowler, ‘Albania searches for a stable future’, The New York Times (16 February 1992).

¹²⁹ Helena Smith, ‘Feuding Albania destroys itself’, The Guardian (24 September 1991).

¹³⁰ Interview with a former government minister now economist, Tirana.

¹³¹ Interview with an Albanian academic specialising in national defence, Tirana.

¹³² Interview with a senior figure from the Ministry of Defence from the period of transition, Tirana.

¹³³ Based on an interview with a former ambassador, Tirana.

¹³⁴ Elez Biberaj, ‘Albania’, in Sabrina Ramet (ed.), Eastern Europe: Politics, Culture, and Society since 1939 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), p. 271.

¹³⁵ Reuters, ‘Official in Albania sees anarchy as rioting and looting continue’, The New York Times (1 March 1992).

¹³⁶ Louis Zanga, ‘A crisis of confidence’, RFE/RL Report on Eastern Europe, 2:16 (1991), pp. 1–4.

¹³⁷ The author was given such an explanation in interviews with diverse actors, Tirana.

¹³⁸ The author was given related explanations in an interview with a local university professor, and in written communication with a former government minister, now economist, Tirana.

¹³⁹ Interview with a local expert in international affairs, Tirana.

¹⁴⁰ Interview with a local journalist, Tirana.

¹⁴¹ Interviews with a member of parliament, and with an early figure in the Democratic Party, Tirana.

¹⁴² See reports in Ian Traynor, ‘Albanian tanks on streets as the protests continue’, The Guardian (22 February 1991); Mark Frankland, ‘Riot deaths deepen crisis in Albania’, The Observer (24 February 1991); David Binder, ‘Albania’s hard-liners and democracy backers battle for control’, The New York Times (24 February 1991).

¹⁴³ Fuga, Les mots dans la communication politique en Albanie, pp. 138–9; Liam McDowall, ‘President empowers army to stop food riots’, The Associated Press (7 December 1991); AFP, ‘Food riots in Albania leave two dead’, Agence France Press (7 December 1991).

¹⁴⁴ Mary Battiata, ‘Albania’s post-communist anarchy; crime, looting spread in Balkan land once ruled by terror’, The Washington Post (21 March 1992).

¹⁴⁵ Anthony Clunies Ross and Petar Sudar, Albania’s Economy in Transition and Turmoil, 1990–97 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), p. 61; Liam McDowall, ‘New prime minister installed as 32 die in Albanian food riot’, The Guardian (11 December 1991).

¹⁴⁶ Ian Traynor, ‘Coup rumours sweep Tirana as four reported killed in clashes’, The Guardian (23 February 1991); Tony Smith, ‘Shkodra and Tirana tense after post-election violence’, The Associated Press (3 April 1991); United States, Department of State, ‘Albanian Post-Electoral Unrest’ (State 107860, April 1991).

¹⁴⁷ See Paul Dresch, A History of Modern Yemen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), ch. 7.

¹⁴⁸ Sarah Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment in Regional Perspective: Patronage and Pluralized Authoritarianism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), chs 3, 4.

¹⁴⁹ Adam C. Seitz, ‘Ties that bind and divide: the “Arab Spring” and Yemeni civil-military relations’, in Helen Lackner (ed.), Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition (London: Saqi Books and SOAS, 2014); International Crisis Group, ‘Yemen’s Military-Security Reform: Seeds of New Conflict?’, Middle East Report No. 139 (Sanaa/Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2013), pp. 2–12.

¹⁵⁰ Peter Salisbury, ‘Yemen’s Economy: Oil, Imports and Elites’, Middle East and North Africa Programme Paper 2011/02 (London: Chatham House, October 2011), p. 2.

¹⁵¹ In 2010, oil production in Yemen was only around 280,000 barrels per day. Sarah Philips, ‘What Comes Next in Yemen? Al-Qaeda, the Tribes, and State-Building’, Middle East Program, No. 107 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2010), p. 2.

¹⁵² April Longley Alley, ‘The rules of the game: Unpacking patronage politics in Yemen’, The Middle East Journal, 64:3 (2010), pp. 385–409.

¹⁵³ Phillips, Yemen’s Democracy Experiment, ch. 4; Shelagh Weir, A Tribal Order: Politics and Law in the Mountains of Yemen (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006–7).

¹⁵⁴ Lisa Wedeen, Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), p. 172.

¹⁵⁵ See Weir, A Tribal Order; Paul Dresch, Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).

¹⁵⁶ National Democratic Institute, ‘Yemen: Tribal Conflict Management Program’, Research Report (Washington, DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, 2007), pp. 17–18; Dresch, Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen, pp. 124–8.

¹⁵⁷ See Najwa Adra, ‘Tribal Mediation in Yemen and its Implications to Development’, AAS Working Papers in Social Anthropology 19 (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences, 2011); Daniel Corstange, ‘Tribes and the Rule of Law in Yemen’, Annual Conference of the Middle East Studies Association (Washington, DC, 2008); Derek Miller, ‘Demand, Stockpiles, and Social Controls: Small Arms in Yemen’, Occasional Paper No. 9 (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2003).

¹⁵⁸ For example, a 2006 report found that 90 per cent of conflicts were prevented or resolved through the application of customary law. Nadwa al-Dawsari, Tribal Governance and Stability in Yemen (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012).

¹⁵⁹ Interview with a Yemeni tribal governance expert, via telephone.

¹⁶⁰ See April Longley Alley, ‘Yemen changes everything … and nothing’, Journal of Democracy, 24:4 (2013), pp. 74–85.

¹⁶¹ Bernard Haykel, ‘The State of Yemen’s Oil and Gas Resources’, Policy Brief (Oslo: Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre, 2013), p. 1.

¹⁶² Available at: {http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=YE} accessed 20 January 2017.

¹⁶³ Ali Saeed, ‘Economists: Government must collect taxes, better manage oil revenues’, Yemen Times (5 November 2013).

¹⁶⁴ International Crisis Group, ‘The Huthis: From Saada to Sanaa’, Middle East Report No. 154 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2014), p. 18.

¹⁶⁵ Dimitis Soudias and Mareike Transfeld, Mapping Popular Perceptions: Local Security, Insecurity and Police Work in Yemen (Sanaa: Yemen Polling Center, 2014), pp. 17, 39.

¹⁶⁶ International Crisis Group, ‘Yemen’s Southern Question: Avoiding a Breakdown’, Middle East Report No. 145 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2013).

¹⁶⁷ International Crisis Group, ‘The Huthis: From Saada to Sanaa’.

¹⁶⁸ Intenational Crisis Group, ‘Yemen’s Military-Security Reform’, p. I.

¹⁶⁹ Soudias and Transfeld, Mapping Popular Perceptions, p. 45.

¹⁷⁰ In 2001, there were almost 5.6 million small arms in the hands of Yemeni tribesmen. Miller, ‘Demand, Stockpiles, and Social Controls’, p. 28.

¹⁷¹ See Sheila Carapico, ‘Yemen between revolution and counter-terrorism’, in Helen Lackner (ed.), Why Yemen Matters: A Society in Transition (London: Saqi Books and SOAS, 2014); Ahmed al-Haj and Lee Keath, ‘Rocket wounds Yemen president, escalating fight’, Associated Press Online (4 June 2011); Alley, ‘Yemen changes everything … and nothing’.

¹⁷² April Longley Alley, ‘Assessing (in)security after the Arab Spring: the case of Yemen’, PS: Political Science & Politics, 46:4 (2013), pp. 721–6.

¹⁷³ International Crisis Group, ‘Yemen: Enduring Conflicts, Threatened Transition’, Middle East Report No. 125 (Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2012).

¹⁷⁴ Alley, ‘Assessing (in)security after the Arab Spring’, p. 722. Also, interview with a former foreign diplomat, London.

¹⁷⁵ See treatments in Soudias and Transfeld, Mapping Popular Perceptions.

¹⁷⁶ See, for example, Khaled Fattah, ‘Yemen: a social intifada in a republic of Sheikhs’, Middle East Policy, 18:3 (2011), pp. 79–85; Samia Nakhoul and Mohammed Ghobari, ‘Yemen on brink of civil war as clashes spread’, Reuters (27 May 2011); J. Dana Stuster, ‘In Yemen, both leadership and opposition face possible collapse’, The Atlantic (6 June 2011).

¹⁷⁷ Erica Gaston and Nadwa al-Dawsari, ‘Waiting for Change: The Impact of Transition on Local Justice and Security in Yemen’, Peaceworks Report No. 85 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2013); al-Dawsari, Tribal Governance and Stability in Yemen, pp. 1–7.

¹⁷⁸ Yemen Post Staff, ‘Tribal mediation ceases battles between army, militants in Yemen’, Yemen Post (30 January 2013); AFP, ‘Al-Qaeda fighters agree to pull out of Yemen’s Rada “without resistance”’, Alarabiya.net English (25 January 2012).

¹⁷⁹ Gaston and al-Dawsari, ‘Waiting for Change’, p. 13.

¹⁸⁰ BBC Online, ‘Yemen: Hashid tribal fighters in ceasefire with Saleh’, BBC News Online (28 May 2011).

¹⁸¹ Interviews with a Yemeni expert in tribal governance, via telephone, and with a former foreign diplomat, London.

¹⁸² Available at: {http://ucdp.uu.se/#country/678} accessed 12 December 2016.

¹⁸³ Available at: {https://acd.iiss.org/en/statistics/selectreporttype} accessed 27 September 2016.

¹⁸⁴ Available at: {http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=YE} accessed 27 September 2016.

¹⁸⁵ Rotberg (ed.), When States Fail.

¹⁸⁶ Alice Ackermann, ‘The prevention of armed conflicts as an emerging norm in international conflict management: the OSCE and the UN as norm leaders’, Peace and Conflict Studies, 10:1 (2003), p. 10.

¹⁸⁷ Bruce W. Bennett and Jennifer Lind, ‘The collapse of North Korea: Military missions and requirements’, International Security, 36:2 (2011), pp. 84–119.

¹⁸⁸ See, for example, Jarat Chopra, ‘Building state failure in East Timor’, Development and Change, 33:5 (2002), pp. 979–1000.

¹⁸⁹ Stephen John Stedman, ‘Spoiler problems in peace processes’, International Security, 22:2 (1997), pp. 5–53.