Earlier this week, Georgetown professor Dr. Patrick Quirk and recent DG alum Owen L. Myers published an issue brief entitled “Less freedom, weaker states, more conflict: can that cycle be broken?” in collaboration with the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Center, where Dr. Quirk serves as a non-resident senior fellow. The brief seeks a solution to cycles of recurring conflict in fragile states despite consistent foreign intervention and state-building efforts. 

“Freedom is the solution to fragility…Success in preventing and ending conflict will be contingent on whether the United States and its allies make freedom central to plans for peace.”

Quirk and Myers emphasize a needed pivot from state capacity building to transforming power systems, particularly expanding widespread freedoms. While the U.S. government “appropriately prioritizes” democracy and state stability in fragile states, it must focus on developing economic, judicial, and political freedoms in complement. Drawing on the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes, the report illustrates how “free societies undercut the foundations of fragility” by creating outlets for expressing grievances outside violent resistance, stimulating economic growth, and building trust between citizens and the state. Successful democracy and governance assistance are inherently linked to expansive freedoms. If citizens can freely participate in civil society organizations, experience economic prosperity, and have rights protected under an equal justice system, they are empowered to engage with the political process, reinforcing state-society relations and increasing state legitimacy. Global state fragility affects the durability of democracy, as well as U.S. political and economic interests abroad. 

Read the full report on the Atlantic Council’s website.

Dr. Patrick Quirk is an adjunct professor at the Georgetown Government Department and Vice President for Strategy, Innovation, and Impact at the International Republican Institute (IRI).

Owen Myers is a recent graduate of Georgetown’s Democracy & Governance M.A. program and a current intelligence officer in the US Army.