Fragile states

Measuring and assessing fragility

This page introduces some of the most widely used statistically based indexes and political economy methodologies for understanding the nature and risk of state fragility.

Despite some convergence and overlap, large variations exist in how donors and international agencies measure state fragility, and which countries are classified as fragile. These various classifications have been widely criticised as arbitrary, methodologically questionable, and lacking in transparency, and for producing only a snapshot of the condition of a state a particular point in time, rather than explaining how change occurs.

Nevertheless, some maintain there is value in measuring and classifying fragility, in that it helps us to understand causality, to monitor changes over time, and to pre-empt crisis by recognising and responding to deteriorating situations.

Page contents

Indexes of state fragility
Risk assessment and early warning
Social and political economy analysis in fragile contexts
Useful websites

Indexes of state fragility

A plethora of analytical frameworks and instruments have been developed to measure certain dimensions and indicators of state fragility. These often culminate in lists or indexes of fragile states which are organised in a hierarchy according to their performance against certain state functions. The overarching aim of these indexes is to record a state’s past, present and future performance, and its performance relative to other states, to provide policymakers with an objective reference point against which to track trends.

But indexes are often criticised for being subjective, arbitrary in terms of where they draw the line between performing and non-performing institutions, and for inconsistencies within and between them. Also because aggregate scores do not adequately illustrate how state capacity varies across functions.

Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) - World Bank

The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is the most prominent and widely used index. It rates the quality of a country’s policies and institutional arrangements against a set of criteria grouped in four clusters: (1) economic management; (2) structural policies; (3) policies for social inclusion and equity; and (4) public sector management and institutions. CPIA scores are used by the World Bank, and the OECD DAC to determine aid allocation and to categorise states that are fragile or Low Income Countries Under Stress (LICUS). A major criticism of this prominent index is that it equates fragility with ‘underdevelopment’.

Baliamoune-Lutz, M and McGillivray, M., 2008, ‘State Fragility: Concept and Measurement’, Research Paper No. 2008/44, UNU-WIDER, Helsinki
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Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (CIFP) - Carleton University

The CIFP fragility index posits that a state needs to exhibit three fundamental properties - Authority, Legitimacy, and Capacity - and that weaknesses in one or more of these dimensions will have an impact on its overall fragility. Structural indicators are grouped into six clusters: Governance, Economics, Security and Crime, Human Development, Demography, and Environment.

2008 Fragility Ranking - CIFP

Failed States Index - Foreign Policy / The Fund for Peace

The Failed States Index is based on 12 indicators of vulnerability: Demographic Pressures, Refugees/IDPs, Group Grievance, Human Flight, Uneven Development, Economic Decline, Delegitimisation of the State, Public Services, Human Rights, Security Apparatus, Factionalised Elites, and External Intervention.

2009 Failed States Index

Index of State Weakness in the Developing World - Brookings Institution

This index uses 20 economic, political, security and social welfare indicators to provide an aggregate rating.

2008 Index of State Weakness

Risk assessment and early warning

Assessing the risk of state failure is seen as critical for facilitating a preventative rather than curative international approach. There has been much analytical work on preventive forecasting, most prominently by the Political Instability Task Force (PITF), which has developed global models and datasets for predicting state instability and failure using four key indicators: regime type, infant mortality, armed conflict in neighbouring countries and state-led political discrimination.

Yet it is acknowledged that there remains a wide gap between the preventative forecasting literature and meaningful policy-related results. Early warning rarely translates into early response. Recently, the OECD has stressed the important role of regional and so-called “third generation” (e.g. internet-based) early warning systems as well as the need to work with local actors on the ground, both as ‘early warners’ and as the first line of response. They also call for a more effective global and regional early warning architecture to overcome the problem of a fragmented approach.

Marshall, M., 2008, ‘Fragility, Instability and the Failure of States: Assessing the Sources of Systemic risk’, Working Paper, Council on Foreign Relations, Centre for Preventative Action, New York
What is the best way to assess the risk of state failure? What are the key indicators that a state is likely to fail? Authored by a member of the United States Government’s Political Instability Task Force (PITF), this Council on Foreign Relations paper draws heavily on PITF’s research and modeling. According to the author, PITF’s recent models are 80 to 90 per cent accurate in predicting state failure.
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OECD-DAC, 2009, ‘Toolkit: Preventing Violence, War and State Collapse: The Future of Conflict Early Warning and Response’, OECD-DAC, Paris
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Social and political economy analysis in fragile contexts

Some argue measuring institutional performance against benchmarks is a managerial response that depoliticises state failure. Political economy analysis can complement institutional assessments, highlighting competing rules of the game in (and between) the formal and informal institutions often prevalent in fragile settings. It can identify shifting coalitions that contribute to or prevent state collapse; the nature and sources of state capacity, authority and legitimacy; and how and why rent seeking and patrimonial political systems can either contribute to, or undermine, state stability. A state-society analytical framework can identify the underlying causes of weak interaction between state institutions and citizens, and facilitate a thorough understanding of the complex power dynamics that characterise state-society relations. For these reasons, a historically-informed assessment of the ‘state of the state’, including the nexus of state-society relations, is now widely recognised as vital in order to better inform development interventions in fragile situations.

Hameiri, S., 2007, ‘Failed States or a Failed Paradigm? State Capacity and the Limits of Institutionalism’, Journal of International Relations and Development, 10, pp.122-149
How useful are current conceptions of state failure for dealing with problems of state fragility? This article from the Journal of International Relations and Development argues that the international community has adopted an overly technocratic notion of the state, which does not view power and conflict as intrinsic to the phenomenon of the state, conflates politics with governance and masks the political nature of state-building. A new framework is needed, based on system-level analyses of social cleavages and their impact on the state and state institutions.
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GSDRC, 2008, 'Political Economy Methodologies for Fragile States', Helpdesk Research Report, GSDRC, Birmingham
This report looks at various political economy approaches and methodologies, including new political economy; institutional economics; drivers of change/politics of development; sustainable livelihoods; and early warning models and conflict analysis. While not all are designed specifically for fragile state contexts, the concepts and approaches are applicable to many differing situations.
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Di John, J., 2008, 'Conceptualising the Causes and Consequences of Failed States: A Critical Review of the Literature', Working Paper No. 25, Crisis States Research Centre, London School of economics (LSE), London
This paper from the Crisis States Research Centre suggests several lenses might be used to develop a sophisticated political economy of conflict in fragile states. These include: (1) Institutional multiplicity: a situation in which different sets of rules of the game coexist in the same territory, putting citizens and economic agents in complex, often unsolvable, situations, but offering them the possibility of switching strategically from one institutional universe to another; (2) State capacity and capability: the abilities and skills of personnel and the organisational culture within the subsystems of the state; (3) ‘Influencing’ or rent-seeking: legal and institutional influencing activities, informal patron-client networks, or corruption; (4) Coalitional analysis: according attention to the shifting constellations of power that underpin formal and informal institutional arrangements; and (5) Divisibility and boundary activation: the creation and activation of boundaries contribute to the escalation of political conflict and violence.
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Mezzera, M., and Aftab, S., 2009, ‘Pakistan State-Society Analysis’, Initiative for Peacebuilding, Brussels, and Netherlands Institute of International Relations (Clingendael), Amsterdam
The analysis in this report originates from the application of the 'State-Society Analytical Framework' (SSAF), a methodology developed by the Democratisation and Transitional Justice Cluster of the Initiative for Peacebuilding (IfP), to the Pakistani context. Structured around three main analytical dimensions, SSAF aims to identify the underlying causes of weak interaction between state institutions and citizens, and to achieve a thorough understanding of the complex power dynamics that characterise state-society relations.
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See also, conflict analysis in the GSDRC conflict guide and the GSDRC’s political economy analysis guide and gender analysis in this guide.

Useful websites

The Political Instability Task Force (PITF) is a prominent organisation working on predicting political instability and the vulnerability of states around the world to political instability and state failure.
The International Poverty Institute is conducting research highlighting the importance of understanding the local political context in which peacebuilding and statebuilding processes take place.
National CEDAW Reports provide useful overviews on the general status of women in specific countries.