The contemporary international system is composed of sovereign states, often referred to as “nation-states,” despite the fact that very few of them comprise only one nation or people. These political entities are considered to have sovereign control over their territories. However, in weak states, empirical sovereignty of the state is questioned by several actors inside of it, especially in respect of the idea of the state. Inability of the state to provide goods to its citizens is exacerbated by societal insecurities of the identity-based communities. So, classical formulation of “national security” seems to be inadequate for coping with insecurities in weak states. Given the importance of weak states for international security, when international community attempts to involve for rebuilding of these states, state-building is mostly privileged in terms of consolidating of institutions of the state. But probably as the most crucial reason of being a weak state, nation-building aspect is neglected. Although much has been written on human security and societal security, interaction of the concept of weak state with these concepts has not been largely discussed among scholars of security studies. In this paper, it will be argued that there should be a mutually reinforcing relationship between human security and societal security. Because, state weakness is the structural cause of not only human insecurity but also societal insecurity as experienced in the daily lives of peoples and communities in the Third World countries. The paper will be structured into four main parts. In first part, a theoretical discussion will be addressed with focus on human security and societal security concepts and arguably outdatedness of traditional security conception in respect of weak state’s security predicament. In second part of it, the concept of weak state and its “types” will be examined through the lens of the concept of socio-political cohesion. In the third one, regime security problem of weak states and the doctrine of resposibility to protect will be evaluated critically. Finally, state-building and nation-building efforts of international community in weak states will be examined comperatively in the context of theoretical aims of the paper.
