Markets, Failure, & Insurrection
| Anytime markets or governments fail to provide staple goods or services to those in need, there can emerge a divide between expectation and reality. When this divide is both acute and chronic, the perception by a population that it has been deprived of something that it fundamentally deserves can serve as a catalyst for insurgent behaviour. Segments of that population may gather under the banner of new political identities designed to remedy the problem, at times by force. This is not new. Yet, as globalization enhances the interdependencies of markets and governments, failures in one market or country can more readily cascade to others. Whether caused by trade or the environment or urbanization or global migration, this transnational dimension offers the potential that populations may relate their deficiencies to common problems, and construct common identities independent of the state. As with the shared ‘Global Jihadi Movement’ identity which has emerged between entirely unrelated Islamist movements today, like those in Somalia and Chechnya for example, the perception of a common problem with a common enemy may give way to common identities that lead to transnational violence. With globalization, the barriers between national identities now have the prospect of breaking down in the face of common market failures or deficiencies in government services in the way intra=national identities have always done. Attendant security implications could prove very real. The Transnational Crisis Project utilizes the power of its global human network to identify these market and government failures, monitor shifts in identity that may emerge between populations in response to them, and tailor new transnational security strategies designed to meet them. | |