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 Institutional Assessment (CPIA) index of The World Bank). A more cohesive definition of the fragile state might also note a state's growing inability to maintain a monopoly on force in its declared territory. 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 grow weaker.
While many countries are making progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, a group of 35 to 50 countries (depending on the measure used) are falling behind. 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, where half of the world's children die before the age of five, and where one-third of maternal deaths occur.
Not only are they falling behind, but the gap with other developing countries is widening since the 1970s. In 2006, per capita GDP grew only at 2% in fragile states, whereas it reached 6% in other low-income countries. Fragile states are projected (for example, World Bank, 2008) to constitute an even larger share of low-income countries in the future given that many better performing low-income countries graduate to a middle-income status. This is a major challenge for development efforts and it has been argued by the Overseas Development Institute that fragile states require fundamentally different approaches from the development models exercised in more resilient countries, because of the differences in their risk contexts.
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.
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 state is not fully accepted. This differs from a failed state, whose governments totally lack legitimacy. Weak states may be difficult to define, as the states fail to collect thorough statistics on crime and education.
In terms of dynamics, fragile states include:
Conflict/post-conflict/crisis/war or political transition situations. Deteriorating governance environments. Situations of gradual improvement. Situations of prolonged political or economic crisis or impasse.
A fragile state is significantly susceptible to crisis in one or more of its sub-systems. It is a state that is particularly vulnerable to internal and external shocks and domestic and international conflicts. Fragile states are not only evaluated by degree of fragility but also types of state fragility and threat they pose in to help policymakers to appropriate responses.MENKHAUS, K. (2010). State Fragility as a Wicked Problem. PRISM, 1(2), 85-100. In a fragile state, institutional arrangements embody and perhaps preserve the conditions of crisis: in economic terms, this could be institutions (importantly, property rights) that reinforce stagnation or low growth rates, or embody extreme inequality (in wealth, in access to property and land ownership, in access to the means to make a living); in social terms institutions may embody extreme inequality or lack of access altogether to health or education; in political terms, institutions may entrench exclusionary coalitions in power (in ethnic, religious, or perhaps regional terms), or extreme factionalism or significantly fragmented security organisations. In fragile states, statutory institutional arrangements are vulnerable to challenges by rival institutional systems be they derived from traditional authorities, devised by communities under conditions of stress that see little of the state (in terms of security, development or welfare), or be they derived from warlords, or other non-state power brokers. Fragile states might also offer citizens multiple, overlapping institutions from highly variant power sources that are competing for legitimacy. While, as opposed to a weak state, these different institutions might not be in direct conflict, they do offer strong competing narratives that hamper the progress of good governance.
The opposite of a "fragile state" is a "stable state" one where dominant or statutory institutional arrangements appear able to withstand internal and external shocks and contestation remains within the boundaries of reigning institutional arrangements. With the right conditions, some countries such as Mozambique and Burundi have so far demonstrated a remarkable turn-around. To address the challenge of these countries falling behind, the international spotlight must be kept on countries where the Millennium Development Goals are hardest to achieve, using common principles for action; making the international aid architecture more rational; improving the organisational response of the wide range of actors involved (including "the 3Ds": diplomacy, defense and development); and measuring results.
While there are no universal criteria to determine state fragility, the World Bank, through its LICUS programme (Low Income Countries Under Stress) and its Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) Index, has been able to establish a preeminent frame of reference for donor countries and other institutional partners. Based on four clusters (including economic management, structural policies, policies for social inclusion/equity and Public Sector Management and institutions) as well as 16 indicators, the CPIA index rates state performance, with those countries scoring under 3.2 out of a total of 6 qualifying as "fragile". Such low performing countries may then be, in turn, suitable for the allocation of financial assistance from a variety of international actors such as the International Development Association and other, similar bodies.Nay, Olivier. "International Organisations and the Production of Hegemonic Knowledge: How the World Bank and the OECD helped Invent the Fragile State Concept." Third World Quarterly 35.2 (2014): 210–31
Origins of the term and discussion Fragile state is an analytical category that gained prominence from the mid 1990s onwards and gained further traction after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Background is the belief held by many policy-makers and academics alike that the potential for contemporary conflict is harboured within, not between, states. Low capacity and low-income states of the Global South are thought to pose direct threats not only to their own populations, but by extension also to their neighboring Western countries. Following this logic, fragile states are in need of development in order to be able to provide security and basic services to its citizens, decreasing vulnerability and increasing resilience to internal and external shocks. In this way, fragile states exhibit a series of similar threats as failed states, but at a markedly lower magnitude. Their failures are an effective omen of what is to come if their administrative course remains unaltered.
Followed by many donor countries and international organisations and institutions, this approach has led to debate within academia and beyond. Some scholars deem the categorisation of states as fragile as useful, highlighting the potential to predict state collapse and assess the many possibilities to prevent it. Two main criticisms of this notion exist: I) the potential of abuse of the category of state fragility, legitimising external intervention at the expense of the local agency; II) the analytical utility of the categorization effort itself is disputed, with the state-centric grouping together of a wide range of diverse countries leading to highly standardised development responses that cannot take into account often highly divergent political, economic and social conditions.Nay Olivier. "Fragile and Failed States: Critical Perspectives on Conceptual Hybrids", International Political Science Review 33.1 (2013): 326–341, Grimm, Sonja, Nicolas Lemay-Hébert, and Olivier Nay. "‘Fragile States’: Introducing a Political Concept." Third World Quarterly 35.2 (2014): 197–209
Indicators The following factors are used by Fund For Peace to ascertain the status of a country.
Social 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. Chronic and sustained human flight.
Economic Widespread corruption High economic inequality Uneven economic development along group lines. Severe economic decline.
Political Delegitimization of the state. Deterioration of public services. Suspension or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses. Security forces operating as a "state within a state" often with impunity. Rise of factionalized elites. Intervention of external political agents and foreign states.
Intergovernmental organisations and measures 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 intergovernmental organisation bringing together countries that have recent experience of conflict. The group aims to draw attention to the special challenges faced by fragile states, provides a platform for conflict-affected countries to come together to discuss their shared development challenges, and advocates for better international policies to address the needs of conflict-affected countries. The g7+ has created own index for measuring state fragility, identifying five clusters (political legitimacy, justice, security, economic foundation, revenue and services), which are located on a fragility spectrum consisting of five stages. Main differences with other indices are constituted by privileged role of individual, state-specific characteristics and self- rather than external assessment.Siqueira, Isabel Rocha De. "Measuring and Managing ‘state Fragility’: The Production of Statistics by the World Bank, Timor-Leste and the G7." Third World Quarterly 35.2 (2014): 268-83
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has based its annual Fragile States Report, as of 2020 named "States of Fragility", on the US Fund for Peace's Fragile States Index, as well as on data from the World Bank (which publishes its own lists of fragile states), since 2005.