Hello comrades,

It’s currently reading week for me, meaning I don’t have classes until early March, like a miniature spring break. I’m spending my time working on my own personal creative projects, playing D&D with my friends, cleaning up my notes from my classes, and studying for my statistics midterm.

For my Political Science class we have to write a research paper about one of five topics our professor laid out for us in the syllabus. It isn’t due until mid March but I figured during my break I could compile some sources for the topic I chose:

Using two cases, indicate the main tasks to be included in the rebuilding of failed and collapsed states? Do you agree with the argument that attempts to universalize human rights in such states are imperialistic?

The other topics were not as interesting nor would I be able to talk about Marxism unless I got incredibly creative. This was the only topic that was vague enough that I could talk about whatever compared to the rest focused on very specific scenarios with very specific countries.

I’m writing here because I figured some of you would be willing to point me in the direction of sources to help me with my research paper, or even give me advice on going about writing it.

I figured one of the ‘failed’ states I could talk about is the USSR, and maybe Yugoslavia being the second since I can’t really think of any other collapsed states (Czechoslovakia? A unified Korea?).

I’m sure with this topic I could really dive into why certain states have fallen, how they could’ve survived, and how they can be revived once more. I could also potentially shoehorn information about western influence and plotting leading to collapse of rival states and the continued turmoil the global south continues to face today, imperialism disguised as spreading ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’.

If I should cross post this in another sub please let me know!