you must have a pretty low bar for 'failed state' tbh
im not an expert on these subjects but i am pretty sure that places like chile or paraquay are infinitely more liveable than any african country
Even Mexico might be more liveable than any or most African countries HDI-wise, it doesn't change its nature of essentially failed state.
A state isn't failed merely when its living standards are low, but when it can't exert its authority on its own territory, and an angry population of starving monkeys will fight government authority at every turn.
Chile and Paraguay are relatively well-off, Chile in particular is also westernized a fair bit. Nothing major could happen there except the sporadic protests, but there are Latin American countries where governments exist far more on paper than in practice.
Venezuela is also a ticking time bomb considering what's going on there, the government has armed
millions of its supporters to attack its opponents, and these people use the weapons in the only logical way you would expect in a starving country; to literally rob others, some to survive and some others to prop up criminal operations.
Guns are power, a monopoly on violence is power, and Venezuela's government has just conceded part of its monopoly on violence to an opportunistic part of the population that will turn those guns against itself once there's nothing left to rob.
That's another failed state where the government's authority is eroding fast.
Of course even in a domesticated society you can only be so much poor before it's a problem for the Leviathan, but just because when you're too poor (especially when you become poor too quickly) you eventually become more desperate and, consequently, less domesticated, there is always a material aspect that complements an ideological and social one.
Every state tries to avoid a situation like this, and with this I'm not saying that poverty is good or emancipating for that matter. What I mean is that no state wants monkeys of its citizens, and there are factors that can turn citizens into monkeys.
