Analytical Paper Four: The State and National Resilience — Why Do Some States Endure While Others Collapse?

By Hisham Yousif Abdelrahman
This is the fourth paper in the series, “Sudan in the Mirror of the International System”. It follows an introduction and three papers examining the transformation of warfare in the twenty-first century, proxy wars and the war economy. This paper turns to state and national resilience to understand the factors that enable some countries to withstand crises more effectively than others.
If new wars, proxy conflicts and war economies have reshaped the environment in which contemporary conflicts unfold, they do not, by themselves, explain why states experiencing similar pressures arrive at different outcomes.
Modern history shows that countries exposed to comparable external pressures have often followed markedly different paths. Some have succeeded in preserving their cohesion and rebuilding their institutions, while others have descended into prolonged cycles of fragmentation and violence.
This means that conflict cannot be fully understood through the study of external forces alone. It also requires an understanding of the nature of the state itself and the strength of its internal resilience.
The deeper question, therefore, is this:
Why are some states more vulnerable to penetration than others?
Abd al-Rahman Ibn Khaldun was perhaps among the earliest thinkers to recognise that the strength of a state cannot be measured solely by the size of its armies. It must also be measured by its degree of social and political cohesion.
In the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun links the rise of the state to the existence of a unifying bond capable of producing legitimacy and safeguarding public order. When that bond begins to erode, collapse is not caused by external attack alone, but by the state’s loss of its ability to preserve internal unity.
External pressure may accelerate a state’s fall, but it is rarely the original cause.
Malek Bennabi developed this idea from a civilisational perspective through his well-known concept of “colonisability” or “susceptibility to colonisation”.
He did not intend to blame victims for what was inflicted upon them, nor to absolve colonial powers of responsibility for their actions. Rather, he sought to draw attention to the fact that foreign intervention succeeds when it encounters a domestic environment already prepared to receive it.
The weaker the institutions become, the more civilisational effectiveness declines and the more the unifying national project contracts, the greater the likelihood that society will become an open arena for external influence.
In this sense, the defence of sovereignty does not begin at national borders. It begins within the state itself: in schools, universities, judicial institutions, public administration and the economy, and in society’s ability to generate mutual trust among its various components.
From a different perspective, Antonio Gramsci offers an equally important concept: hegemony.
In his view, control is not achieved through armed force alone, but through the ability to shape public consciousness, manufacture consent and influence elites, institutions, and cultural and media discourse.
The state’s struggle is therefore not decided solely on the battlefield. It is also fought in the realms of ideas, education, the media, symbols and national narratives.
Here, Gramsci’s perspective intersects with the analysis of Abdel Wahab El-Messiri, who argued that modern domination often no longer depends upon direct occupation. Instead, it operates by reshaping political, economic and cultural environments in ways that make influence more deeply rooted and less visible.
In the age of globalisation, control is not always exercised through soldiers. It may instead be exercised through the economy, the media, knowledge and the management of networks of influence.
Samuel Huntington, meanwhile, draws attention to the idea that the greatest threat facing states is not necessarily the existence of foreign adversaries, but the weakness of their political institutions.
In Political Order in Changing Societies, he argues that stability is not produced by military power alone, but by the ability of institutions to manage differences, enforce the law and preserve legitimacy.
When this capacity deteriorates, the state becomes more vulnerable to external intervention, because an institutional vacuum rarely remains empty for long. Other forces quickly move to fill it.
Francis Fukuyama develops a related argument, maintaining that state-building is not merely a matter of creating administrative bodies. It is the establishment of institutions possessing competence, legitimacy and accountability.
A strong state is not one that continually expands its use of force, but one that successfully performs its essential functions, earns the trust of its citizens and retains a monopoly over the legitimate use of force within the framework of the law.
Charles Tilly adds a particularly important historical dimension. He argues that the modern state was not built through military power alone, but through its ability to organise resources, enforce the law and establish a balanced relationship with society.
The legitimacy of the state is not derived only from its monopoly over force. It also depends on its ability to transform that force into an institutional system that serves the public interest and enjoys social acceptance.
Gunnar Myrdal, for his part, warns against the phenomenon of the “soft state”: a state that possesses formal institutions but is unable to apply the law equally or bring multiple centres of influence within a single institutional framework.
In such environments, war-economy networks, non-state actors and external interventions become more capable of penetrating the state. This is not necessarily because they are inherently stronger, but because the state has lost its ability to exercise control over the public sphere.
When these contributions are considered together, they present an integrated understanding of the state as a system of national resilience.
Resilience does not mean military strength alone, nor economic abundance alone. It means the interaction of legitimacy, institutions, national identity, the rule of law, administrative competence and social trust within a single framework.
The greater the cohesion among these elements, the less vulnerable the state becomes to penetration, regardless of the intensity of external pressure.
Viewed through this framework, the war in Sudan can be understood as a dual test.
On the one hand, it reveals the scale of pressure that a state may face within a complex regional and international environment. On the other, it demonstrates that Sudan’s future will not be determined solely by the military balance of power.
It will also depend upon the country’s ability to restore its institutions, renew its legitimacy, rebuild trust between the state and society, and eliminate the conditions that allow the war economy and foreign influence to take root.
Any project aimed at emerging from the war cannot, therefore, be limited to ending military operations or to reaching a political settlement, however important both may be.
Comparative experience confirms that sustainable peace begins when the state resumes its essential functions, institutions recover their ability to operate, and society regains confidence in the state as the common framework that brings all citizens together.
This leads to the final question that this series seeks to address:
How can these theoretical frameworks, taken together, help us interpret the Sudanese situation within the context of current regional and international transformations?
And, in light of them, is it possible to anticipate the broad direction that the conflict may take during the next phase?
To be continued.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=16116