What makes a state fragile? There is no internationally agreed definition of fragility but for the purposes of this paper, states are considered fragile when their government cannot or will not deliver the core functions to its people, including the poor. These include: weak political institutions, economic decline, poverty, and violent conflict.
What is a fragile state?
A state that is fragile has several attributes, and such fragility may manifest itself in various ways. Nevertheless, some of the most common attributes of state fragility may include: The loss of physical control of its territory or a monopoly on the legitimate use of force; The erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions; The inability to interact with other states as …
How do fragile states rely on non-state actors?
Feb 19, 2020 · What makes a state fragile? There is no internationally agreed definition of fragility but for the purposes of this paper, states are considered fragile when their government cannot or will not deliver the core functions to its people, including the poor. These include: weak political institutions, economic decline, poverty, and violent conflict.
What are the three core gaps of fragile states?
Mar 27, 2015 · Much like Tolstoy’s quip that each 'unhappy family is unhappy in its own way', a fragile state is fragile in its own way (see this paper, by the World Bank’s Michael Woolcock for more). Therefore, it is all too often unhelpful to reduce the definition of fragility to standardized, static lists or indicators – in so doing, we miss the complexities and nuances of fragility in …
What is the OECD’s new report on fragile states all about?
The term ‘fragile state’ tends to refer to states that represent persistent challenges for the donor community by not living up to Weberian expectations and by foreshadowing the risk of collapse. Large variations exist in donors’ definitions of state fragility, however, and therefore in the countries included in their indexes.
What does it mean for a state to be fragile?
What is the most fragile state?
Which are fragile states?
| Rank | Country | Change from 2018 |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Yemen | 1.0 |
| 2 | Somalia | 2.3 |
| 3 | Syria | 0.7 |
| 4 | South Sudan | 4.0 |
What are the 12 indicators used to measure state fragility?
- Security Apparatus.
- Factionalized Elites.
- Group Grievance.
- Economic Decline and Poverty.
- Uneven Economic Development.
- Human Flight and Brain Drain.
- State Legitimacy.
- Public Services.
What are the characteristics of a weak state?
Why are fragile states important?
How is state fragility measured?
How many fragile states are there?
What region has the most fragile states?
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Fragile States Index 2022
- South Sudan.
- Somalia.
- Yemen.
- Syria.
- Central African Republic.
- Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Sudan.
- Chad.
What countries are failed states?
What is fragile state?
A fragile state or weak state is a country characterized by weak state capacity or weak state legitimacy leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks. The World Bank, for example, deems a country to be ‘fragile’ if it (a) is eligible for assistance (i.e., a grant) from the International Development Association (IDA), ...
Why does a fragile state grow weaker?
While a fragile state might still occasionally exercise military authority or sovereignty over its declared territory, its claim grows weaker as the logistical mechanisms through which it exercises power grows weaker.
Why is democratization important in fragile states?
According to Samuel Huntington, “The most important political distinction among countries concerns, not their form of government but their degree of government.” The purpose of democratization and institutional development in fragile states is to help them improve both state capacity and development of inclusive institutions. Knutsen and Nygard (2015) emphasize that semi-democracies (fragile states in our discussion) are less stable than both autocracies and democracies. In other words, once the process of democratization begins, it is dangerous to stop midway.
How does fragility affect service delivery?
In fragile states service delivery may be impacted by financial constraints, limited expertise and a lack of information Long and protracted violence leads to the neglect and subsequent decay of the infrastructure required for provision. Governance and the breakdown of social order can also heighten the social exclusion of specific groups along ethnic, religious, political and gender lines. Such violence can be political, including conflict and terrorism, but can also be social or criminal, leading to a broad combination of security-based obstacles to effective service provision.
What is the measure of fragility?
One common measure of state fragility is the World Bank's Country Policy and Institutional Assessment index , but more complex indexes, for example ones that include security dimensions, are increasingly being used. A fragile state in the brink of collapse may result in a failed state .
How is support given to fragile states?
However, how support is given to fragile states to provide these services is not so simple. Aid agencies who act independently of the state and provide parallel services risk undermining state legitimacy and capacity. On the other hand, supporting the state's own provision can be problematic as the state itself may be the cause of social divisions and a source of conflict.
How many people live in fragile states?
It is estimated that out of the world's seven billion people, 26% live in fragile states, and this is where one-third of all people surviving on less than US$1.25 per day live, half of the world's children who die before the age of five, and one-third of maternal deaths occur.
When did the OECD publish the fragile states report?
The OECD has published a report on Fragile States every year since 2005 to monitor aid to a list of countries that are considered most fragile. This year, rather than focusing purely on a list, the report charts out a universal understanding of fragility which goes beyond fragile and conflict-affected states. The new title “States of Fragility Report,” revised from the previous “Fragile States Report,” reflects this change.
What are the dimensions of fragility?
The report presents a new, multidimensional monitoring framework which uses 5 dimensions of fragility based on a post-2015 framework: violence, justice, institutions, economic foundations and resilience.
How does the universal and multidimensional fragility filter help?
It can help to identify priorities by highlighting the specific vulnerabilities that countries face and help ensure that public goods are delivered to the sector that needs it most. It can also inform international priorities for jointly reducing fragility.
Is fragility restricted to a few countries?
This useful model breaks down the drivers of fragility for each country and reveals different patterns of vulnerability, suggesting that fragility is not restricted to a few countries. Countries vulnerable across all five dimensions of fragility are most likely to have been identified on existing fragile states lists, but many lower middle-income countries are specifically vulnerable to the risks of violence and economic shocks and natural disasters, including countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
What is fragility in government?
In simple terms, fragility is understood here to refer to ineffective states, those that cannot or will not fulfil minimal functions of government. The term is used interchangeably with weakness and instability.
How do political systems survive?
48. Political systems and state institutions survive by acquiring legitimacy from the people they govern: without some legitimacy they will not be self-sustaining into the long-term. The age of institutions can have a legitimising effect as public expectations adapt to a history of state performance. This goes some way to explain why autocracies prove so durable:44 if services are provided consistently, even if the state authority is enforced through coercion, the population will not necessarily seek to change those structures. Similarly, where the state has consistently failed to provide services for its population, people stop expecting to have services delivered, and work around existing structures to provide for themselves.
What is violent conflict?
40. Violent conflict is the ultimate manifestation of a breakdown in communication and negotiation between conflicting groups , and the most destructive aspect of any development process. However, violent conflict is often viewed simply as a result, rather than a driver of fragility. Yet there is plenty of evidence to show that violent conflict is in itself a self-reinforcing process that contributes to a lack of stability.
Do states operate in isolation?
52. States do not operate in isolation, so will certainly be affected by events in neighbouring countries. The more extreme the event, the more likely it will impact on its neighbours. If a state has weak institutions from the outset, and particularly where there are marked social divisions (compounded with
What is a failed state?
The simplest definition of a failed state is one that cannot fulfil its most basic responsibility: to provide security. If the state no longer has a monopoly on violence, everything else breaks down, from electricity to roads, schools to health care. Most people in a failed state tend to be poor, while elites tend to be predatory. What is less clear is when a state moves from “failing” to “failed”. Take Nigeria. Parts seem perilously close to failure. Boko Haram, a brutal jihadist group, controls a swathe of the north-east, and the army’s attempts to crush it have proven ineffective. In other regions, conflicts between farmers and pastoralists kill thousands. Yet Nigeria holds together. Elections are dirty and violent, but more or less reflect the will of the people. Government is corrupt, but most Nigerians recognise it. When especially angry, many Nigerians describe their country as a failure. But it does not really deserve that label.
What are some examples of state failure?
Yemen is a clearer example of state failure. Dozens of local groups have fought a ghastly civil war since 2014. Unlike in Nigeria, the government has completely collapsed. Some 16m people lack enough food. Massive destruction of health services and water infrastructure contributed in 2017 to one of the worst cholera outbreaks in recent history. Efforts to curb covid-19 are practically non-existent. Syria, too, is a failed state. There is no end in sight to its decade-long civil war. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime rules the capital, Damascus. But much of the country is controlled by Islamists, remnants of the secular opposition, or Kurds, who have ambitions to secede. The economy is shattered. More than 600,000 Syrians are dead or missing; another 13m have fled their homes.
Overview
A fragile state or weak state is a country characterized by weak state capacity or weak state legitimacy leaving citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks. The World Bank, for example, deems a country to be ‘fragile’ if it (a) is eligible for assistance (i.e., a grant) from the International Development Association (IDA), (b) has had a UN peacekeeping mission in the last three years, and (c) has received a ‘governance’ score of less than 3.2 (as per the Country Policy and Instituti…
Definition
Fragile states are also known as weak states. Fragile states fail to fully meet key needs of their citizens. The shortcomings are termed gaps, with three core gaps: security gap, capacity gap, and legitimacy gap. The security gap means the state does not provide adequate protection to its citizens; the capacity gap means the state does not fully provide adequate services; and the legitimacy gap means that the authority of the stateis not fully accepted. This differs from a faile…
Indicators
The following factors are used by Fund For Peace to ascertain the status of a country.
• Mounting demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts.
• Massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies.
• Widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances.
Intergovernmental organisations
Fragile states and post-conflict countries have participated in many intergovernmental groups and associations since the Second World War, including the Group of 77 and regional groups such as ASEAN and the African Union. However until recently countries affected by conflict had no dedicated international platform. In 2010 the g7+was founded by a group of post-conflict countries to better represent their interests on the international stage. The g7+ is an intergovern…
Origins
American international studies professor Joel Migdal looked into the relationship between state and society, where there is a disparity between the officially announced policies and the actual distribution of state resources. The list of countries included India, Mexico, Egypt and Sierra Leoneetc. He traced this disparity to the lack of social control by the government - “the actual ability to make the operative rules of the game for people in the society." This not only includes existence …
Basic services provision
There is a relationship between state fragility and service deliveryand they are both seen as interrelated and mutually reinforcing, yet some also suggest that the provision of basic services can reduce state fragility. In fragile states service delivery may be impacted by financial constraints, limited expertise and a lack of information Long and protracted violence leads to the neglect and subsequent decay of the infrastructure required for provision. Governance and the b…
State building and peacebuilding
Whether or not to provide services in parallel is often framed as a debate between state building and peacebuilding. State building is argued to lead to peace when it involves seeking to develop an inclusive state, where legitimacy is built as the result of the state responding to the demands of all of society and providing public goods and services. However, supporting the state in this direction is not a simple task, especially for the following reasons:
Non-state actors
Individuals in fragile states often rely on non-state actors such as chiefs, tribal elders, secret societies, gangs, militias, insurgents, community or religious leaders to meet their justice and security needs. Lisa Denney, of the Overseas Development Institute, therefore stresses the need for development donors to engage with these non-state actors when attempting to reform justice and security services in fragile states. She suggests four rules of engagement: