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Failed
states index 2007
Foreign
Policy Magazine
July/August 2007
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3865
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The world's
weakest states aren't just a danger to themselves. They can
threaten the progress and stability of countries half a world away.
In the third annual Failed States Index, Foreign Policy and The
Fund for Peace rank the countries where the risk of failure is running
high.
It is an accepted
axiom of the modern age that distance no longer matters. Sectarian
carnage can sway stock markets on the other side of the planet.
Anarchic cities that host open-air arms bazaars imperil the security
of the world's superpower. A hermit leader's erratic
behavior not only makes life miserable for the impoverished millions
he rules but also upends the world's nuclear nonproliferation
regime. The threats of weak states, in other words, ripple far beyond
their borders and endanger the development and security of nations
that are their political and economic opposites.
Few encouraging
signs emerged in 2006 to suggest the world is on a path to greater
peace and stability. The year began with violent protests that erupted
from Indonesia to Nigeria over the publication of cartoons depicting
the Prophet Mohammed. February brought the destruction of Samarra's
golden-domed mosque, one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines,
unleashing a convulsion of violence across Iraq that continues unabated.
After Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers last July, southern
Lebanon was bombarded for a month by air strikes, sending hundreds
of thousands of refugees fleeing into neighboring states. And in
October, the repressive North Korean regime stormed its way into
the world's nuclear club.
What makes
these alarming headlines all the more troubling is that their origins
lie in weak and failing states. World leaders and the heads of multilateral
institutions routinely take to lecterns to reiterate their commitment
to pulling vulnerable states back from the brink, but it can be
difficult to translate damage control into viable, long-term solutions
that correct state weaknesses. Aid is often misspent. Reforms are
too many or too few. Security needs overwhelm international peacekeepers,
or chaos reigns in their absence.
The complex
phenomenon of state failure may be much discussed, but it remains
little understood. The problems that plague failing states are generally
all too similar: rampant corruption, predatory elites who have long
monopolized power, an absence of the rule of law, and severe ethnic
or religious divisions. But that does not mean that the responses
to their problems should be cut from the same cloth. Failing states
are a diverse lot. Burma and Haiti are two of the most corrupt countries
in the world, according to Transparency International, and yet Burma's
repressive junta persecutes ethnic minorities and subjects its population
to forced resettlement, while Haiti is wracked by extreme poverty,
lawlessness, and urban violence. For a decade, Equatorial Guinea
has posted some of the highest economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa,
yet its riches have padded the bank accounts of an elite few. And
in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the inability of the government
to police its borders effectively or manage its vast mineral wealth
has left the country dependent on foreign aid.
To provide a
clearer picture of the world's weakest states, The Fund for
Peace, an independent research organization, and FOREIGN POLICY
present the third annual Failed States Index. Using 12 social, economic,
political, and military indicators, we ranked 177 states in order
of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict and societal
deterioration. The index scores are based on data from more than
12,000 publicly available sources collected from May to December
2006. The 60 most vulnerable states are listed in the rankings,
and full results are available at www.ForeignPolicy.com
and www.fundforpeace.org.
For the second
year in a row, Sudan tops the rankings as the state most at risk
of failure. The primary cause of its instability, violence in the
country's western region of Darfur, is as well known as it
is tragic. At least 200,000 people—and perhaps as many as
400,000—have been killed in the past four years by janjaweed
militias armed by the government, and 2 to 3 million people have
fled their torched villages for squalid camps as the violence has
spilled into the Central African Republic and Chad. These countries
were hardly pictures of stability prior to the influx of refugees
and rebels across their borders; the Central African Republic plays
host to a modern-day slave trade, and rebels attacked Chad's
capital in April 2006 in a failed coup attempt. But the spillover
effects from Sudan have a great deal to do with the countries'
tumble in the rankings, demonstrating that the dangers of failing
states often bleed across borders. That is especially worrying for
a few select regions. This year, eight of the world's 10 most
vulnerable states are in sub-Saharan Africa, up from six last year
and seven in 2005.
That is not
to say that all failing states suffer from international neglect.
Iraq and Afghanistan, the two main fronts in the global war on terror,
both suffered over the past year. Their experiences show that billions
of dollars in development and security aid may be futile unless
accompanied by a functioning government, trustworthy leaders, and
realistic plans to keep the peace and develop the economy. Just
as there are many paths to success, there are many paths to failure
for states on the edge.
The year wasn't all bad news, though. Two vulnerable giants,
China and Russia, improved their scores sufficiently to move out
of the 60 worst states. That is in part due to the fact that 31
additional countries were assessed this year. But some credit must
be paid to the countries themselves. China's economic engine
continues to propel the country forward at a breakneck pace, but
the growing divide between urban and rural, as well as continued
protests in the countryside, reveals pockets of frailty that the
central government is only just beginning to address. Russia's
growing economy and a lull in the violence in Chechnya have had
stabilizing effects, despite fresh concerns about the country's
democratic future.
The vast majority
of the states listed in the index have not yet failed; they exhibit
severe weaknesses that leave them vulnerable, especially to shocks
such as natural disasters, war, and economic deprivation. The power
of such events should not be underestimated. The war in Lebanon
last summer helped undo nearly two decades of economic and political
progress. But Lebanon was vulnerable because its political and security
structures lacked integrity and remained tensely divided by factionalized
elites. Those vulnerabilities not only helped turn the clock back
on the country's development, but they reverberated across
the region—into Israel, Jordan, and Syria. It shows again
that a country's problems are never simply its own.
That conclusion
becomes especially worrisome when the weak states in question possess
nuclear weapons. Today, two countries among the world's 15
most vulnerable, North Korea and Pakistan, are members of the nuclear
club. Their profiles could hardly be less similar: The former faces
the very real prospect of economic collapse, followed by massive
human flight, while the latter presides over a lawless frontier
country and a disenchanted Islamist opposition whose ranks grow
by the day.
But while these
states' failings may be frequent fodder for headlines around
the world, it is obvious that there are few easy answers to their
troubles. In highlighting which states are at the greatest risk
of failure, we can only hope that more effective and long-term solutions
emerge over time as we compare the index from year to year. In that
way, positive reversals of fortune can occur for the world's
most vulnerable nations and, in the process, improve the security
and prosperity of everyone.
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