July
01
2009 Index:
Slide Show: Life in a Failed State
Link to full list for 2009
Access to earlier Indexes : 2006-2008
January
26
Somalia: To Move Beyond the Failed State
Source: International Crisis Group
Since 1991 Somalia has been the archetypal failed state. Several attempts to create a transitional set-up have failed, and the current one is on the brink of collapse, overtaken yet again by an Islamist insurgency, despite the support of an Ethiopian military intervention since December 2006. Over the last two years the situation has deteriorated into one of the world’s worst humanitarian and security crises. The international community is preoccupied with a symptom – the piracy phenomenon – instead of concentrating on the core of the crisis, the need for a political settlement. The announced Ethiopian withdrawal, if it occurs, will open up a new period of uncertainty and risk. It could also provide a window of opportunity to relaunch a credible political process, however, if additional parties can be persuaded to join the Djibouti reconciliation talks, and local and international actors – including the U.S. and Ethiopia – accept that room must be found for much of the Islamist insurgency in that process and ultimately in a new government dispensation.
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May
21
Breaking the Failed-State Cycle
Source: RAND Corporation
Insecurity in the 21st century appears to come less from the collisions of powerful states than from the debris of imploding ones. Failed states present a variety of dangers: religious and ethnic violence; trafficking of drugs, weapons, blood diamonds, and humans; transnational crime and piracy; uncontrolled territory, borders, and waters; terrorist breeding grounds and sanctuaries; refugee overflows; communicable diseases; environmental degradation; and warlords and stateless armies. Regions with failed states are at risk of becoming failed regions, like the vast triangle from Sudan to the Congo to Sierra Leone. For security, material, and moral reasons, leading states cannot ignore failed ones. While no two failed states are alike, all typically suffer from cycles of violence, economic breakdown, and unfit government, rendering them unable to relieve the suffering of their people, much less empower them. This paper aims to improve the understanding and treatment of failed states by offering an integrated approach based on two ideas: that certain critical challenges at the intersections between security, economics, and politics must be met if the cycle is to be broken and that, in meeting those critical challenges, the guiding goal should be to lift local populations from the status of victims of failure to agents of recovery.
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April
06
States in Transition Observatory
The States in Transition Observatory is a research and advocacy unit based in IDASA South Africa. It seeks to monitor and analyse political developments in transition, weak and failing states in Africa. In 2007-8 much of its work centred on the political crisis in Zimbabwe under the rule of Robert Mugabe. It includes access to press releases, statements and full text research reports. Topics covered include human rights, assessments of the state of democracy and coverage of the 2008 presidential elections.
http://www.idasa.org.za/index.asp?page=programme_details.asp?RID=54
Index of state weakness in the developing world
The Index of State Weakness in the Developing World, written by Susan E. Rice and Stewart Patrick was published in 2008 by the Brookings Institution. ISBN 13: 978-0-8157-7435-8. The 47 page report ranks 141 developing countries according to their relative performance in the 4 areas of economic, political governance , security, and social welfare providing measures of state insecurity and weakness. The political governance section includes measures of democracy, political violence and human rights factors. It then considers the implications for US foreign policy. Information on the methodology used to compile the index is provided.
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Files/rc/reports/2008/02_weak_states_index/02_w
March
31
Index of State Weakness in the Developing World
Source: Brookings Institution
Since September 11, 2001, the United States and other governments have frequently asserted that threats to international peace and security often come from the world’s weakest states. Such countries can fall prey to and spawn a host of transnational security threats, including terrorism, weapons proliferation, organized crime, infectious disease, environmental degradation, and civil conflicts that spill over borders. Accordingly, the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States maintains that weak and failing states “pose as great a danger to our national interest as strong states.”
The Index of State Weakness in the Developing World was designed to provide policy-makers and researchers with a credible tool for analyzing and understanding the world’s most vulnerable countries. Co-directed by Brookings Senior Fellow Susan Rice and Center for Global Development Research Fellow Stewart Patrick, the Index ranks and assesses 141 developing nations according to their relative performance in four critical spheres: economic, political, security and social welfare.
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July
12
The mission of th[is] nonprofit ... is "to prevent war and
alleviate the conditions which cause war." The group's website features
the annual Failed States Index (ranking countries "based on their
social, economic, and political pressures") and reports on the Iraq
conflict, globalization and human rights, peace and stability
operations, and related topics. Additional material is
subscription-based.
URL: http://www.fundforpeace.org
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24062 (More)
URL: http://www.fundforpeace.org
LII Item: http://lii.org/cs/lii/view/item/24062 (More)