No Such Thing as Disorder: A Review of States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance

Adam Day advances a nearly unthinkable contention with his book States of Disorder, Ecosystems of Governance: failing states are not actually in disorder. Instead, he argues that failing states demonstrate a different kind of self-organization and that persistent instability is, in fact, the success of system organization—just a system oriented toward instability instead of stability. In his deft, 178-page argument, Day asks, “Why does state building fail, so often and so comprehensively, to achieve its objectives of stable, liberal modes of governance?” Through a thoughtful analysis, he concludes that the United Nations “failed to grasp reality, becoming swept up in the system itself, often unintentionally strengthening some of the predatory, violent tendencies [it is] trying to transform”. The focus of his analysis is on UN state-building efforts in South Sudan through the United Nations Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), and the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).

Day is no hapless critic––he is a long-term member of the UN elite and the current Head of the Geneva Office of the United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. His resume includes positions such as Senior Political Advisor to MONUSCO and roles with the UN Special Coordinator’s Office for Lebanon, UNMIS, and UNAMID. He spent time on the ground in both of the book’s case study nations and is intimately invested in UN state-building efforts.

States of Disorder is not for the layman. Day wrote this book for those invested in the United Nations and its state-building efforts. He is writing a letter to his community, diagnosing a problem. He wastes no breath—or ink—explaining the ins and outs of UN peacekeeping mandates or the nuances of what peacekeeping and stabilization entails. Thus, its pace and analysis may leave behind readers unfamiliar with the UN and its processes. However, those already acquainted with the UN will find his argument compelling and easy to follow. His early chapters include a robust literature review, lending the book dual purpose as an excellent overview for anyone looking to understand the existing body of knowledge around state-building, state failure, and scholarship on the United Nations.

Day’s analysis shines in two domains: the application of complexity science and his hypothesis about why state-building efforts fail. His use of complexity is sound but not needlessly technical, allowing readers with all levels of familiarity with complexity science to follow along. Day’s second chapter provides a substantial overview of the components of complexity necessary to understand his argument, such as an explanation of emergent behavior, feedback loops, and the concept of strong attractors. His seventh chapter, “Comparing South Sudan and Congo,” could stand independently for an audience familiar enough with the UN and the respective issues in South Sudan and DRC. It provides a neat summary of his argument around the issues with UN efforts in both countries and the application of complexity science.

Day makes novel arguments and offers new ideas and explanations to a well-worn line of questioning about state-building. For example, he invites the reader to understand corruption as a part of feedback loops, which feels like an intuitive argument. However, he makes an argument unique to the international development and peacebuilding world: the UN’s failure is not a failure of under-resourcing. It is a failure of imagination. Often, any issue is met with calls for more resources. A solution set to any problem must be purchasable. Day disagrees, highlighting how the resources poured in from NGOs and state-building efforts entrenched ongoing systemic issues. The UN became a part of the existing system instead of disrupting it. He uses the example of how resources brought by outsiders poured into the coffers of South Sudanese ethnic and military elite, strengthening the pattern of what Day calls “peripheral dependency on the center”.

Similarly, in his analysis of the DRC, Day identifies how armed groups, and the Kinshasa elite developed a reciprocal relationship, each requiring protection and legitimization from the other. Day exposes MONUSCO’s overreliance on formal state institutions and its assumption that stability would emerge from building hierarchical state capacity. In reality, the UN failed to account for rich informal networks, including these armed actors. He even identifies how the UN becomes subject to the same forces he asserts exist in the complex systems of the DRC, noting how the UN was influenced by the tendency toward violence in the DRC and how MONUSCO leaned into the use of force.  Ultimately, Day explains that the UN failed because it could not alter the system’s underlying mechanisms and symbiotic relationships. He argues that the mission in the DRC suffered from a “conceptual myopia” where the UN was convinced that state authority would remove instability and failed to account for the importance of informal networks and the plurality of actors.

Day’s critique of the UN is damning without being hopeless: UN peacekeeping not only failed to interrupt these patterns and transform systems of governance but may have reinforced the underlying pull toward violence, corruption, and instability within the system. The UN thinks of persistently failing states as lacking resilience, but Day argues they are systems highly resilient to a specific type of instability—one of unrest and violence. Instead of wallowing in critical misery, Day is constructive. He counsels that moments of intense flux are not opportunities for transformation. Rather, Day argues that such moments of instability may instead be times when the forces of strong attractors are the greatest. He closes with a call to action almost unthinkable to those determined to change state-failure dynamics: “Complexity theory may demand that interveners work with the grain rather than against it.”