Examining Diffuse Benefits and Shared Responsibility in the Perpetuation of 'Failed' Policies

This research seeks to invoke critical international relations and normative
theory lenses to advance our understanding of why many foreign interventions
continue long after they have failed to achieve their stated goals and the
normative implications of perpetual 'failed' interventions in terms of attributing
responsibility and even legal culpability for such continued 'failure'. From
botched humanitarian interventions to prolonged military aid programmes,
foreign intervention policies often gain notoriety for 'doing more damage than
good'. In explaining such 'failures', critiques often focus on the role of a handful
of individual decision makers in an endless game of naming and shaming, a
tendency toward attributional oversimplification that is well-documented in
literature on organisational theory.

This research proposal engages the theoretical premise that in order to
understand and improve upon foreign interventions, it is first essential to
expose and examine the diffuse web of interests and influences that
perpetuate the status quo. Michel Foucault's critical theory underpins this
framework: Foucault calls into question the negative nature of 'failure',
demanding that we consider "the whole play of dependencies that make up a
functional system" (Foucault 1968, 58) in order to understand it. Within the
scope of this research, Foucault's approach pushes us to critically examine the
secondary, hidden functions and benefits of prolonged foreign interventions,
probing the possibility that seemingly 'failed' efforts may hold hidden benefits
and secondary functions for a diffuse set of actors.
I thus seek to critically examine the role of agent-driven strategic intent as
opposed to less intentional and more diffuse factors in contributing to apparent
policy 'failures', asking: a) how can we characterise the role of hidden and
diffuse benefits in perpetuating supposed 'failed' foreign interventions? I will
then consider the normative implications of such diffuse drivers behind
apparent 'failure', ultimately asking: b) what are the normative implications of
diffuse benefits of 'failure' in terms of attributing responsibility for continued
'failure'? How can we attribute blame if benefits of a 'dysfunctional' system are
widely shared? By endeavouring to challenge entrenched notions of attribution
of responsibility for such 'failure', we interrogate the unexplored premises of
why and how-and if-we 'help'.
I tentatively propose to consider the diffuse functions of 'failed' interventions
through exploring the case of perpetuated counter-narcotics assistance to
Tajikistan. While this case study may evolve as I refine my project, Tajikistan
provides an interesting possible case: funding to the Central Asian republic has
repeatedly proven ineffective in stemming the flow of drugs from Afghanistan.
Nonetheless, funding has been maintained. This project would seek to unpack
the role of intentional decision-making on the part of donors and recipients as
opposed to more diffuse forms of power such as path dependency and
discourse in perpetuating assistance, before considering the normative
implications of such a case of shared responsibility.
This project ultimately seeks to contribute to critical theory literature on the
functions of seeming 'dysfunction', questioning how we assign responsibility for
'failures' that produce benefits for actors living within systems and that are
derived from a complex array of factors.