Notes
1. Lists of fragile states vary, but the World Bank's consolidated list of fragile and conflict-affected countries wracked by repeated cycles of violence with deleterious development consequences-is considered the authoritative guide for international financial institutions and OECD donors. The 2011 list names thirty two states and territories. World Bank, "Harmonized List of Fragile Situations FY11" (presentation, World Bank, New York, 2010), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/EXTLICUS/Resources/511777-1269623894864/ FS_List_FY11_(August_8_2010).pdf. Using a slightly different methodology that draws on a consolidation of three of the projects surveyed in this paper, a 2010 OECD Development Assistance Committee report lists forty-three countries and territories. OECD-DAC, "Resource Flows to Fragile States" (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010), 156.
2. See General Assembly Security Council, "Report of the Secretary General on Peacebuilding in the Immediate Aftermath of Conflict," No. A/63/881-S/2009/304 (New York: United Nations, July 2009); The White House, National Security Strategy of the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, May 2010), www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/national_security_strategy.pdf.
3. See, for example, United Nations, A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility (New York: United Nations, 2004), http://www.un.org/secure%20world; James Fearon and David Laitin, "Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States," International Security 28, no. 4 (2004): 5-23.
4. Frances Stewart and Graham Brown et al., "Fragile States" (working paper 51, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, Oxford, 2009); see also Fearon and Laitin, "Neotrusteeship and the Problem of Weak States."
5. Halvard Buhaug, Nils Petter Gleditsch, and Ole Magnus Theisen, "Implications of Climate Change for Armed Conflict" (Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2008); see also United Nations, "Understanding Environment, Conflict and Cooperation" (Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2004), www. wilsoncenter.org/topics/pubs/unep.pdf.
6. Monty G. Marshall, "Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States: Assessing Sources of Systemic Risk" (working paper, Center for Preventative Action, Council on Foreign Relations, New York, October 2008), www.cfr.org/conflict-prevention/fragility-instability-failure-states-assessing-sources-systemic-risk/p17638.
7. He also identified the World Bank's World Governance Indicator project measures to be in this category (Marshall, "Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States," 16). See also Susan Rice and Stewart Patrick, "Index of State Weakness in the Developing World" (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008), www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/02_weak_states_index.aspx.
8. Javier Fabra Mata and Sebastian Ziaja, Users' Guide on Measuring Fragility (Bonn: German Development Institute and the United Nations Development Programme, 2009), www.undp.org/oslocentre/docs09/ Fragility_Users_Guide_(web).pdf.
9. Mata and Ziaja, User's Guide, 25. A draft chapter from the United States Institute for Peace provided another useful review, surveying a range of measures. It identified four types of analytic models: early warning watchlists (in which category they place the University of Maryland's Peace and Conflict Instability Ledger and the CrisisWatch bulletin), conflict metrics instruments (including the Brookings Institution's Index of State Weakness in the Developing World and the Global Peace Index as well as the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment), conflict assessment frameworks (more detailed accounts of particular conflicts), and conflict mapping tools (exploring actor networks).
10. David Carment, Stewart Prest, and Yiagadeesen Samy, Security, Development and the Fragile State: Bridging the Gap between Theory and Policy (Hoboken, NJ: Routledge, 2010), see especially chapter 4.
11. Carment, Prest, and Samy, Security, Development and the Fragile State, 120.
12. Barry B. Hughes and Evan E. Hillebrand, Exploring and Shaping International Futures (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006); Barry B. Hughes, "Forecasting Long-Term Global Change: Introduction to International Futures (IFs)" (working paper, Frederick S. Pardee Center for International Futures, University of Denver, December 2009).
13. The concept of vulnerability is also used in a variety of other areas of global concern, such as vulnerability to disaster from climate change and its social effects. For an effort to develop a conceptual basis for the vulnerability concept, see Nick Brooks, "Vulnerability, Risk, and Adaptation: A Conceptual Framework" (working paper no. 38, Tyndall Center for Climate Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich, 2003), www.eird.org/cd/ on-better-terms/docs/Brooks-N-Vulnerability-risk-and-adaptation-a-conceptual-framework.pdf.
14. Barnett Rubin, Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2003).
15. Practitioner toolkits are one place to find theoretical and indicator-related systematic approaches to conflict vulnerability analysis. See, for example, UNDP Oslo Governance Center and German Center for International Development (2009). See also World Bank, "Conflict Analysis Framework" (draft document, Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction Team, Social Development Department, World Bank, April 2005), http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTCPR/214574-1112883508044/20657757/CAFApril2005. pdf; USAID, "Conflict Vulnerability Assessment: A Framework for Strategy and Program Development" (Washington, DC: U.S. Agency for International Development, April 2005), www.usaid.gov/our_work/ cross-cutting_programs/conflict/publications/docs/CMM_ConflAssessFrmwrk_May_05.pdf.
16. I. William Zartman, "Need, Greed, and Creed in Intrastate Conflicts," in Rethinking the Economics of War: The Intersection of Need, Creed, and Greed, edited by Cynthia J. Amson and I. William Zartman (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2005), 275.
17. For an overview of various definitions of fragility and state weakness in development literature and in comparative politics literature, see Claire Mcloughlin, Topic Guide on Fragile States (Birmingham, UK: Governance and Social Development Resource Centre, October 2010), www.gsdrc.org/go/fragile-states/ chapter-1--understanding-fragile-states/definitions-and-typologies-of-fragile-states#donor.
18. Indeed, it may be appropriate to expand the spectrum metaphor to a kaleidoscope, in that in addition to an overall measure of fragility on a linear scale it may also be useful to consider various facets of fragility emanating from the salience of different drivers in different moments of conflict or in subnational regions. The kaleidoscope approach may be useful in considering detailed conflict vulnerability assessments but is perhaps too complicated a metaphor to be reflected in aggregate quantitative measures such as summary indices.
19. See www.pcr.uu.se/research/UCDP.
20. "States are fragile when state structures lack political will and/or capacity to provide the basic functions needed for poverty reduction, development and to safeguard the security and human rights of their populations." OECD-DAC, Principles for Good International Engagement with Fragile States (Paris: Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation, 2007), 2. Rice and Patrick identify weak or fragile states as those "that lack the essential capacity and/or will to fulfill four sets of critical government responsibilities: fostering an environment conducive to sustainable and equitable economic growth; establishing and maintaining legitimate, transparent, and accountable political institutions; securing their populations from violent conflict and controlling their territory; and meeting the basic human needs of their population" (Index of State Weakness, 3).
21. Marshall identified as categories socialist and former socialist countries, obscure ones, and complex circumstances ("Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States," 17). That set indicates how difficult it is to clearly distinguish countries across measurement projects. We have found it nearly impossible to be systematic in doing so.
22. Among these, one might differentiate between those emerging from conflict as a consequence of negotiated settlement and those for which military victory was unilateral. This distinction may be important for understanding future vulnerability with respect to the debate in the literature over whether negotiated settlements are more vulnerable to conflict recurrence than military victories. For recent work in this genre (in this case, arguing that military victories are less prone to recurrence over time), see Monica Toft, Securing the Peace: Durable Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).
23. Carment, Prest, and Samy, Security, Development and the Fragile State, 4.
24. For example, in the 2010 rankings of the Global Peace Index, the United States is ranked 85 of 149. See Vision of Humanity, "GPI Map 2010," www.visionofhumanity.org/gpi-data/#/2010/scor.
25. For categorizations used by eleven measures, most of which do not use a spectrum, see Mata and Ziaja, User's Guide.
26. Mata and Ziaja, User's Guide.
27. Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole, Global Report 2009: Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility (Vienna, VA: Center for Systemic Peace, George Mason University, 2009), 40, www.systemicpeace.org/ Global%20Report%202009.pdf.
28. Paul Collier, V. L. Elliot, Havard Hegre, Anke Hoeffler, Marta Reynal-Querol, and Nicholas Sambanis, Breaking the Conflict Trap: Civil War and Development Policy (Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003).
29. For an evaluation, see Amnesty International, "Conflict Diamonds," www.amnestyusa.org/diamonds/ index.do.
30. "Every state . . . tends to support particular groups, to distribute privileges unequally, and to differentiate among various categories in the population. . . . The state itself is the greatest prize and resource over which groups engage in a continuing struggle in societies that have not developed stable relationships among the main institutions and centrally organized social forces." Paul R. Brass, Ethnic Groups and the State (Philadelphia, PA: Taylor and Francis, 1985), 9, 29.
31. Richard P. Cincotta, Robert Engelman, and Daniele Anastasion, The Security Demographic: Population and Civil Conflict after the Cold War (Washington, DC: Population Action International, 2003); Richard Cincotta, "The New Fifteen Years, According to Demography" (unpublished working paper, U.S. National Intelligence Council, 2010).
32. See, for example, CCHS, "Human Security in an Urban Century: Local Challenges, Global Perspectives" (Canadian Consortium on Human Security, Ottawa, 2007), www.humansecurity.info.
33. Luca Alinova, Gunter Hemrich, and Luca Russo, "Addressing Food Insecurity in Fragile States: Case Studies from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia and Sudan" (ESA working paper 07-21, Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, Rome, 2007).
34. Margaret Hermann and Charles Kegley, "Democracies and Intervention: Is there a Danger Zone in the Democratic Peace?" ]ournal of Peace Research 38, no. 2 (2001): 237-45.
35. Jack A. Goldstone, Robert H. Bates, David L. Epstein, Ted Robert Gurr, Michael B. Lustik, Monty G. Marshall, Jay Ulfelder, and Mark Woodward, "A Global Model for Forecasting Political Instability," American ]ournal of Political Science 54, no. 1 (January 2010): 195-96.
36. Armed conflict involves the state versus one or more organized and politically motivated armed groups where there is direct competition for the state or for territory. Armed violence is used to refer to situations of high social violence (such as criminal or gender-based violence). See the Geneva Declaration, The Global Burden of Armed Violence (Geneva Declaration Secretariat, 2008), www.genevadeclaration.org/fileadmin/docs/ Global-Burden-of-Armed-Violence-full-report.pdf. See also Charles Tilly, Securing the Peace: Durable Settlement of Civil Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002).
37. Valerie M. Hudson, Mary Caprioli, Bonnie Ballif-Spanvill, Rose McDermott, and Chad F. Emmett, "The Heart of the Matter: The Security of Women and the Security of States," International Security 3, no. 33 (2008): 7-45.
38. David Lake and Donald Rothchild, eds., The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict: Fear, Diffusion, and Escalation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
39. See Astri Suhrke and Ingrid Samset, "What's In a Figure? Estimating the Recurrence of Civil War," International Peacekeeping 14, no. 2 (2007): 195-203. Joseph Hewitt, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, and Ted Robert Gurr found that "in the past 10 years, 39 different conflicts that became active. . . . Of these, 31 were conflict recurrences-instances of resurgent, armed violence in societies where conflict had largely been dormant for at least a year. Only eight were entirely new conflicts between new antagonists involving new issues and interests." Peace and Conflict 2010 (College Park, MD: Center for International Development and Conflict Management, University of Maryland, 2010), 1. See also Lotta Harbom, Stina Hogbladh, and Peter Wallensteen, "Armed Conflict and Peace Agreements 1946-2008," ]ournal of Peace Research 46, no. 5 (2009): 577.
40. Mata and Ziaja, User's Guide.
41. Ibid., 19.
42. Monty Marshall consciously takes a probabilistic approach, noting that extreme fragility (SFI values of 20-24) suggest an annual probability of 0.0884 for problem onset, compared with a probability of 0.68 for high fragility (SFI values of 16-19), and so on down through serious fragility, low fragility, and little or no fragility. "Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States," 16.
43. Marshall also notes the task force attention to fractionalization ("Fragility Instability, and the Failure of States").
44. See especially Mata and Ziaja, User's Guide.
45. Carment, Prest, and Samy also show the Carleton and Brookings indices correlated at 0.84 but the Fund for Peace and George Mason indices at only 0.64 (compared with our 0.78). They correlated indices only across sixty-one developing countries so we would expect somewhat different values, but they also found most measures correlated at the 0.7 and 0.8 levels or higher. The exception for them was the World Bank low-income country under stress (LICUS) analysis measure called the Country Policy and International Assessment (CIPA) index, which correlated with most measures at about the 0.5 to 0.6 level. They note that the LICUS measure is heavily oriented to economic variables. Security, Development and the Fragile State, 120.
46. Marshall, "Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States."
47. This is an anomaly to which we will return.
48. This could, however, be the wrong interpretation for the measure's attention to these states. It might be simply that, relying on news feeds, these states (and perhaps Bhutan and Cyprus also) happened to generate some particularly unhappy news during the period of the most recent analysis of them.
49. The difference in treatment of Norway in the George Mason measure is simply an artifact of that project's decision not to differentiate among the most stable countries; it should be ignored.
50. Compare the GDP per capita breaks here with the World Bank's classification system: low income is GNI per capita below $975; lower middle is $976 to $3,855; upper middle is $3,856 to $11,905; high income is $11,906 or more. See World Bank, "How We Classify Countries," http://data.worldbank.org/about/countryclassifications.
51. In 2005, the Stable 59 averaged over $26,000 (US) per capita at purchasing power parity. The Vulnerable 72 averaged just over $4,000 of the same measure, the Fragile 48 was still well below $2,000, and the Failing 3 averaged $373.
52. Longitudinal analysis of the measures relative to each other and relative to actual conflict levels would be ideal. The IFs project has only been able to obtain significant longitudinal data for the George Mason State Fragility Index (1995-2008). Carment, Prest, and Samy report on longitudinal analysis (1980-2006) of their Carleton measure but do not make the index available over time to others. "The general trend that can be observed is that the developing world has become more fragile over time. . . . For all developing countries, increasing fragility and ALC [authority-legitimacy-capacity] scores were at their highest point in 1989, coinciding with the end of the Cold War, and after a brief decline in the early 1990s have been on the rise again" (Security, Development and the Fragile State, 124). What is curious is that Marshall and Cole report that actual domestic conflict declined quite steadily after 1989 rather than reversing (Global Report 2009). Hence this suggests a negative correlation between the Carleton index and the conflict trend. But Carment, Prest, and Samy do not analyze their measure against conflict, but instead against potential drivers of it. Again their conclusion is surprising, because a main driver, GDP per capita, has trended positively.
53. Collier et al., Breaking the Conilict Trap.
54. Analysis with the Polity measure of democracy does not, however, show the same crossover of fragile and more limited vulnerability states.
55. The R-squared values in the table explore only linear relationships, and some relationships are almost certainly nonlinear. The focus on only the forty-eight fragile states reduces the impact of that simplification, however, because we have seen that those states cluster into a fairly narrow range of GDP per capita values, a key variable with which many social variables have curvilinear relationship over a wider range. We looked at the possibility that nonlinear (specifically logarithmic) relationships with GDP per capita might generate higher correlations with the various indices and they generally did not.
56. See Integrated Network for Societal Conflict Research (INSCR), "Data Page," www.systemicpeace.org/ inscr/inscr.htm.
57. We added these measures to the IFs database and considered them in preliminary analysis but have not discussed our analysis of them here. Institutions and their indices include Freedom House (the Countries at the Crossroads measure), the World Bank (the Country Policy and Institutional Assessment IDA Resource Allocation Index, abbreviated as the IDA-IRAI measure), Vision of Humanity (the Global Peace Index), the University of North Carolina (Political Terror Scale), and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation (African governance measure).