Paying particular attention to the processes of state restructuring and collapse affecting countries in the South, this book highlights current inroads of global forces on the state. Related to the discussion about 'failed' or 'failing' states, is focus is on how globalisation impacts on state structures in the South, and on the latter's varying capacities to maintain themselves amidst new challenges and uncertainties. In thus looking at globalisation, state formation/restructuring and collapse from a unified perspective, the study explores a field of political transformation and analysis that appears of crucial importance to an understanding of the contemporary context. Main themes addressed include patterns of externally orchestrated state restructuring, the role of 'good governance' discourse, and trajectories of state collapse and re-starts. Attention is also devoted to the politics of statelessness, and interplay of identity and power, and to ethnic conflict triggered or fanned by resource struggles underlying state restructuring.