In this respect, it is notable that public killings mainly – although far from exclusively – persisted in the southern states, where political authority was weaker and more decentralised, and where racial terror was the dominant means of political control.
It is a place where the Palestinian Authority is weak and residents are culturally conservative.
-- Government control over national territory and borders, including areas where government authority is weak or absent.
The Palestinian Authority is weak — still in conflict with Hamas in Gaza, still lacking any real initiative from Jerusalem.
Banditry and disorder metastasise into a threat – which, by virtue of its simple, harsh and absolutist appeal, then begins to replicate itself everywhere where authority is weak.
It was difficult to confirm their accounts, in part because the fighting took place in a remote area that separates Paktia and Khost Provinces, where government authority is weak.
If unchecked, the Mali crisis threatens to create an arc of instability extending west into Mauritania and east through Niger, Chad and Sudan to the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Aden, characterized by extended spaces where state authority is weak and pockets of territorial control are exercised by transnational criminals.
For the Red Guards, the military hierarchy and implementation of orders functioned effectively only at company and platoon level; even there, leadership and authority were weak, as most company and platoon commanders were chosen by the vote of the troopers.
Sadly, OSHA staff abandoned the potent weapon of criminal prosecutions years ago, having convinced themselves that because their legal authority is weak, there was no point in working too hard on such cases, which are likely to be fought tooth and nail by corporate behemoths like DuPont.
The real business of helping these states build an indigenous economy and creating jobs to replace opium growing and smuggling in the rural lands, where government authority is weakest, was left to chance.
