Re-visiting the concept & practice of soft state

The term ‘soft state’ was first used by the Swedish economist Gunnar Myrdal in his magnum opus ‘Asian Drama’ (1970) to find out what lay behind the slow and stumbling progress of most of the newly independent countries in the Asian continent. He used the term to describe a general societal indiscipline prevalent in Asia and in much of the developing world, in comparison to the modern state that had emerged in Europe. Myrdal elaborated on the term describing ‘all the various types of social indiscipline which manifest themselves by deficiencies in legislation and, in particular, law observance and enforcement, a widespread disobedience by public officials and, often, their collusion with powerful persons and groups – whose conduct they should regulate.’ Within the concept of the soft state he also included corruption, both as a cause and its consequences.

For Myrdal, a major causal factor behind soft state was colonial powers’ destruction of many of the traditional centres of local power and failure to create viable alternatives. Coupled with this was the development of an attitude of disobedience to any authority which was central to the nationalist politics of resistance. This attitude persisted after independence. Such soft states were seen as unlikely to be capable of imposing the right development policies and adequate and strong enough to act against corruption at all levels.

Soft state paradigm: According to Myrdal, the soft state paradigm shows two types of statehood. These are as follows:

1. Empirical. The state in its empirical sense is defined and determined by its demonstrable capacity in such matters as competitive pressures of classical states-system. For example, the respect and recognition accorded by other governments. It includes the development of armed forces, courts and magistrates, and police forces. This type of state, originating in competitive Europe, was built in the face of strong pressures for disintegration, both domestic and international. The empirical state is also found in North America, South America, the Middle-East and Asia.

2. Juridical. The juridical state is the collaborative state-system that has emerged in many parts of the ex-colonial world, particularly in Africa and Asia. It lacks the essentials of statehood and sovereignty is guaranteed by the world community of states such as embodied in United Nations.

Comment on ‘soft state’: It is obvious that Myrdal’s soft states are case studies in failure or they are on the cusp of failed states by the metrics of practices in developed countries. He characterised this failure by the absence of adequate legislation, the enforcement of laws legislated, misuse of power by public officials and their collusion with powerful groups, lack of representative institutions in substitution of the traditional ones destroyed by colonial powers and an attitude of disobedience to authority.

The identification of institutions as an explanatory factor for the emergence and continuance of soft states is crucial to Myrdal’s analysis. He held colonial powers responsible for destruction of traditional institutions in the colonies and their failure to promote alternatives. There is no doubt that he had representative social and political institutions in mind, harking back to the concept of ‘little republics’ in rural India, as described by Charles Metcalfe (Minute on Indian Education, 1835). To the extent that colonial powers in Asia and Africa weakened and made irrelevant village level institutions as self-governing bodies of self-contained local communities this observation is acceptable up to a point. But these were not representative bodies in so far as the leadership was hereditary and elitist in nature. The colonial powers, particularly the British in India, introduced local bodies that were based partly on elected and partly on nominated representatives and as such were superior to traditional local bodies in political terms. As for representative institutions at national level, colonial powers did not have to destroy any because none existed prior to their arrival. What the colonial powers supplanted was a centralised autocratic authority exercised by chieftains, kings and emperors. On the other hand, they eventually established political institutions at national level that were, as in the case of local bodies, partly representative. So, it is not true, as Myrdal contends, that the colonial powers did not promote ‘alternative’ institutions in the countries they ruled. The fact that the colonies have failed to fully democratise these institutions or establish their home-grown ones should be explained by the absence of any experience based on their traditions. Colonies did not have any democratic traditions of the pre-colonial past to learn from.

More serious than the absence of a tradition of working with representative institutions is the inheritance of autocratic practices of the pre-colonial period. This ‘inheritance’ has been made worse by the colonial experience of being ruled by an officialdom detached from local people. As contributory factors for the emergence and continuance of soft state, both the role of elected representatives and bureaucracy have to be taken into account. While the former have not been able to work in the interests of the general public because of a lack of tradition, the latter has failed to evolve, coming out of the colonial mode to adjust to new circumstances. Myrdal’s allusion to the collusion of bureaucracy with powerful groups in promotion of common interest is, however , largely correct.

Disobedience of the public to central (governmental) authority as a legacy of popular resistance to colonial rule, identified by Myrdal as one of the characteristics of a soft state, is acceptable. The colonial experience of politics of agitation, carried over to the present, has undermined the practice of democracy. This has meant that in many cases ruling regimes are changed by people using extra- constitutional means. Denial of space to opposition to give vent to their views and the right to take part in elections freely by parties in power has rendered democracy fragile and unstable.

The prevalence of corruption in modern day soft states, as defined by Myrdal, has no equivalence in pre-colonial or colonial period. What took place in those two periods is exploitation by rulers, for their personal gratification in pre-colonial period and for both personal and official interests of rulers under colonial and post- colonial rule. Lack of accountability under autocratic rule in modern day soft states not only sustains corruption but also allows it to grow with impunity. Corruption in soft states increases in number and volume as economic growth takes place. Myrdal did not care to delineate the trajectory of corruption from pre-colonial to post-colonial, through colonial periods which is a lapse as corruption has come to be the great defining characteristics of soft states.

In his paradigmatic classification of soft states the dichotomy between empirical and juridical types is not clear cut as he identified developed countries that were not colonised as soft state of empirical category. This is fallacious because by his definition, soft states are the legacy of colonial rule by outsiders. As to the nomenclature ‘empirical’ (referring to reality), both mature and soft states are concrete cases that can be seen and studied. In both cases, they are juridical also, that is, legitimate and legal. It is the legitimacy that confers sovereignty and not guarantee by other countries or a world body (the United Nations), as has been stated by Myrdal. As regards official entities like army, police etc., states of every description have these in varying forms. Their presence or absences are not distinguishing features of soft states, as it has been made out to be in Myrdal’s analysis.

What would have been more credible as paradigm is categorising mature states in Europe as ‘nation states’, most of which became colonial powers. ‘Soft states’ could then be shown in colonised countries as post- colonial phenomenon after they became independent.

The concept of soft state in newly independent countries is credible because of their empirical basis as judged by the characteristics mentioned by Myrdal. It is defined mostly in terms of dysfunctional political institutions. When a state is politically weak all other institutions under it bear the brunt of this weakness. The result is stunted socio-economic growth or unsustainable growth because of rampant corruption.

Is Bangladesh a soft state: The hallmark of soft states is weak and unstable political institutions. The rest of the malaise they suffer from stems from this overwhelming fact. In Bangladesh democracy, as the overarching ideology of statehood, has been a ‘work in progress’ till to date, after fifty three years of independence. For this the blame lies at the door of self- serving politicians, ambitious army officers and a bureaucracy complicit with both when they are in power. Bangladesh’s journey as an independent country began with semi-authoritarianism, authoritarianism and military dictatorship for 20 years (1971-1991). It was followed by a decade of fledgling but promising democracy under the guidance of caretaker government before general election. Power hungry politics made short shrift of this mechanism for holding free and fair elections, ushering in a short spell of semi-military rule during 20O6-20O8. When this interregnum was over, the country saw the beginning of a manipulated democracy virtually under a one party rule that continued for over 15 years. The country has just got rid of this autocratic regime after a violent street movement that took a toll of one and a half thousand lives, injuring many more. All told, Bangladesh has become a poster-child of soft state with politics in turmoil and democracy in peril.

As is the case with soft states of weak political institutions under autocratic rulers, corruption became rampant and deepened with the passage of time. Absence of rule of law and blatant violation of human rights have been the other characteristics of Bangladesh’s experience as a soft state.

Moves are now afoot to help Bangladesh and its people to come out of the soft state trap. Only time will tell if this attempt at building the state afresh will be crowned with success. But this much is obvious that in future, which begins now, a ruler at the helm of the state can deign to become an autocrat only at his or her peril. This is a good beginning to bid farewell to the dreary past.

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