Political Instability Task Force

Political Instability Task Force (formerly known as State Failure Task Force) was a U.S. government-sponsored research project to build a database on major domestic political conflicts leading to state failures.

The project was begun as an unclassified study that was commissioned to a group of academics (particularly active was the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University) by the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Intelligence in response to a request from senior U.S. policy makers in 1994. A similar project (Project Camelot) generated much controversy in the 1960s.

The task force first identified over 100 "problem cases" - discrete cases of civil war, rebellion, and revolution in the world from 1955 to 1995.

For every year in which a problem case existed, the task force chose at random three other countries from a group of all countries in the world that had no such internal conflicts for the decade centered on that year ("stable case" or control cases). Data on the problem cases were then pooled and compared with data on the control cases to seek factors associated with major political conflicts. This method produced over 400 cases for the pooled data analysis; nonetheless, each case of conflict was treated as a whole and was the basis for comparisons.

The task force repeated this analysis for global and regional data sets and produced fairly consistent findings. The three statistically significant variables most often associated with political upheavals were:
*regime type,
*international trade and
*infant mortality.

Regime type had a U-shaped relationship to political unrest: democracies and autocracies were both relatively stable; however, partial democracies were at extremely high risk. Countries with an above-average portion of gross national product (GNP) tied to international trade, and with lower infant mortality, were generally more stable. This can be explained by the fact that partial democracies are states in which elites and rulers have begun the process of conflict, reform, and concessions; states have thus shown some weakness and are at a highly unstable juncture (as would be expected by many theorists of revolutions, see States and Social Revolutions, and as shown by waves of democracy and waves of revolutions). Having a significant portion of GNP involved in international trade requires adherence to rule of law and low levels of corruption; it may also restrain elite competition. Countries that have small involvement in international trade for the size of their economy likely have elite factions that are distorting trade and other economic activity for their benefit, which often intensifies intra-elite conflicts. Infant mortality is an excellent summary measure for standard of living; therefore it addresses popular perceptions of the effectiveness of the regime in providing for welfare and justice. That all three measures must be relatively high to pose high risks of revolution confirms the conjunctural approach of case studies.

Quantitative models developed by the State Failure Task Force, using various combinations of factors to denote the effectiveness of state institutions, population well-being, and elite conflicts, would have accurately predicted over 85% of major state crises events occurring in 1990– 1997, using models based on 1955–1990 data. However the State Failure Task Force, despite its high success in predicting the onset of state crises, has had no success in using prior conditions to predict the magnitude and eventual outcome of such events.

Electronic copies of the first three biennial Task Force reports are available free of charge and are downloadable from the official web site (see below); the Phase IV report will also be available here as soon as it is approved for public release.

External links

* [http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/Research/mstohl/failed_states/1998/papers/gurr.html The State Failure Project: Early Warning Research for U.S. Foreign Policy Planning]
* [http://www.iq.harvard.edu/blog/sss/archives/2005/09/state_failure.shtml Social Science Statistics Blog: State Failure]
* [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v414/n6863/full/414480a.html The crystal ball of chaos] , Nature,

References

*Jack Goldstone, "Towards a Fourth Generation of Revolutionary Theory", "Annual Review of Political Science" 4, 2001:139–87
* [http://globalpolicy.gmu.edu/pitf/ Political Instability Task Force Homepage]

Further reading

*Esty D, Goldstone JA, Gurr TR, Harff B, Levy M, Dabelko GD, Surko P, Unger AN. 1998. "State Failure Task Force Report: Phase II Findings." McLean, Virginia: Science Applications International Corporation