State failure takes many forms. Somalia offers one extreme. A collapse of central authority as the outcome of a prolonged civil war, where authority descends into competing factions – warlords – around the spoils of local commerce, power and international aid. At the other end of the scale is Malawi under President Bingu. During his abbreviated second term in office, the country’s economy collapsed as a result of poor policies and personalised politics. On the surface, save the petrol queues, it was stable; underneath the polity was fractured and the economy broken. Between these two extremes of state failure are all manner of examples. This book uses field-work based case-studies of more than 30 countries, incorporating interviews with a dozen leaders, to disaggregate various state failures and identify instances of recovery – from Latin America, Asia and Africa, and including Afghanistan, Congo, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Somalia and Somaliland, Venezuela and Zimbabwe – while focusing on a key question: How do countries recover and what roles are there for insiders and outsiders?

‘Up close and personal: Greg Mills seamlessly straddles a policy world divided into doers and writers.’ – General Sir David Richards ‘This brilliant, heart-felt book is a blueprint to improve people’s lives. Read it, and learn.’ – Ron Suskind

Greg Mills is director of the Johannesburg-based Brenthurst Foundation. He is widely published on international affairs, development and security, an adviser to African governments, a regular columnist for local and international newspapers, and the author of the best-selling books Why Africa is Poor – and what Africans can do about it (2010) and, with Jeffrey Herbst, Africa’s Third Liberation (2012).