ABSTRACT
This chapter examines a contemporary case study of state failure and intervention in the present liberal international order of the early twenty-first century. The intervention in Ivory Coast was undertaken to reverse the shame and dishonour of French policies and actions that were implicated in the genocide in Rwanda. The conflict in Ivory Coast displays a more traditional political rationale of contested citizenship claims based around a complex mosaic of ethnic identities. The exclusion of northern ethnic groups and Muslims from citizenship rights in Ivory Coast was viewed with growing outrage by French policy-makers in the period between 1999 and 2002. On the surface Ivory Coast appeared successful as a postcolonial state, unlike most of its neighbours. The postcolonial political settlement in Ivory Coast began to unravel in the 1980s with economic recession and international trade liberalization. The French military actions seem to a unilateral decision without Ivory Coast government authorization.
