#failed state

Children are now significantly more likely than two decades ago to be growing up in poverty despite all adults in their household working full time, new research has found. Around 430,000 children across the UK are believed to be at risk of poverty in households where every adult is in full-time employment, new data from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Action for Children shows. It said the figures show a “fundamental shift” in the nature of poverty in the UK, with almost three-quarters of children in poverty living in working households in 2024/25, up from around half at the turn of the century.

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“Parents are doing everything we’ve asked of them – working full time and juggling childcare – yet many are still watching their children grow up in poverty,” Henry Parkes, principal economist and head of quantitative research at IPPR, said. “That’s not a failure of individual families, it’s a sign the system is no longer delivering on its basic promise.” More than half of families who were able to bring in a second income were able to move above the poverty line, the study found. But researchers said many families struggle to do this because of structural barriers including high childcare costs, limited availability outside of term time, inflexible jobs and a lack of informal support. Mr Parkes said the research shows how poverty is not about “effort” but often a result of families not being offered appropriate support. “This research shows that it’s not inevitable: when families are supported to progress, especially second earners, their finances improve quickly,” he explained. “The problem isn’t effort, it’s the barriers we’ve built into work and childcare, and those can be fixed.”

NOTE: I am a history buff (with greater emphasis on East Asian, particularly Korean, history), but not a historian, and do not possess an academic degree in any field of history. This is a conclusion/theory derived from my personal research and, to my knowledge, has not been published in any book or journal (yet).

There are some issues with modern-day separatist “movements” or thought experiments, most of which are related to their over-reliance on allegedly historical (our understanding of history is unfortunately never the complete picture) and cultural distinctions and their general lack of understanding with regards to historical factors that actually led to successful separatism.

Modern-day separatism (and in many cases, historical collapse/partitions) as a general rule tends to require the source state to be a failed/collapsing state or at the very least a state whose government/state apparatus is undergoing intense revolution/upheaval/coup d’etat (i.e. not long-term reforms or shifts). In the 20th century and beyond, in my own personal assessment, there are 6 primary macroscopic determining factors for these phenomena, of which most major upheavals in the past 125 years had a minimum of 4 factors active/fulfilled (further, these conditions may be fulfilled and result in a failed state/upheaval but not necessarily result in partition or geopolitical alteration):

Lack of presence & strength of central government in/over territories within its jurisdiction

Large ratio of de jure to de facto territories (i.e. a large quantity of claimed/disputed territories; for example, territories under the control of an active and competent separatist movement count only as de jure but not de facto territories of the central government and would thus contribute to this ratio)

Weak national economic strength and/or poor economic strength distribution across populations in de facto territories (distribution seems to be a somewhat more important factor than overall national economic strength)

Capability/competence of people/groups (relative to the central government) and their willingness to overthrow the current government and/or negotiate a partition (this tends to be an ex post facto determination, though in the case of actual territorial control relative competence can be identified while in progress)

Inter-agency rivalries, and the degree of independence of government institutions (e.g. police, military, etc.)

Likelihood of encroachment into neighboring territories or encroachment into de facto territories by neighboring entities (and the likelihood of internal resistance to foreign/non-government occupation in case of the latter)

As support, consider the following circumstances: Empire/State of Russia, 1905-1921 (all conditions fulfilled except #2 – ended in Communist takeover of Russia followed by collapse of the USSR some 2.5 generations later); Vietnam, 1945-1975 (conditions 1, 3, and 4 fulfilled by 1953; all conditions except #5 fulfilled in South Vietnam while Communist North Vietnam had conditions 2 and 6 fulfilled – ended in complete Communist (Northern) takeover of all Vietnam, and by extension completed Communist control of former French Indochina); Cuba, 1945-1959 (conditions 3-6 fulfilled – ended in Communist takeover of Cuba); China, 1920-1949 (all 6 conditions fulfilled – ended in Communist takeover of mainland China and the exile of the Nationalist government to Formosa/Taiwan); Spain, 1918-1939 (conditions 1, 3, 4, 5 fulfilled – ended in Francoist takeover of Spain and eventual restoration of constitutional monarchy only after Franco’s death in 1975); Iran, 1950-1979 (conditions 1, 3, 4, 5 fulfilled – ended in Shia Islamist takeover); Somalia, 1980- (all conditions except #6 fulfilled); Ethiopia, 1961-1991 (all 6 conditions fulfilled – resulted in partition in the form of Eritrean independence, the end of Ethiopian imperial government, the murder of Haile Selassie, civil war, and the establishment and collapse of the socialist Derg); the Republic of Korea (South Korea), 1948-1963 (all conditions except #1 fulfilled – endured a war and ended in a military dictatorship and eventual establishment of representative democracy in the 1990s); Afghanistan, 2001-2021 (conditions 1, 3, 4, 5 fulfilled – ended in Islamist reconquest); Sudan, 1980s-2011 (conditions 1-4 fulfilled – ended in partition); Ethiopia, 2018- (all conditions except #5 fulfilled – currently in the middle of a civil war and separatist conflicts); Libya, 1969-2011 (conditions 1, 3, 5, 6 fulfilled; condition 4 also fulfilled after the 1990s – ended with the death of Muammar Gadhafi and the establishment of a transitional government).

Israel’s ruling coalition proposes early elections amid ultra-Orthodox anger at Netanyahu

Prime minister under pressure over failure to grant military service exemptions as multi-party government looks at risk of collapse

Israel’s ruling coalition has submitted a proposal to dissolve parliament to pave the way for early elections as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, came under mounting pressure from ultra-Orthodox parties.

The move, initiated by Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party, came as Netanyahu appeared to be facing a possible collapse of his fractious coalition.

If the bill is approved it would automatically trigger elections to be held after 90 days.