The Failed States Index FAQ

Q: Why are only some countries included in the Failed States Index?

A: The 2005 Failed States Index is based on a sample of countries deemed to be the most vulnerable to violent conflict. The Fund for Peace (FfP) updated a list of vulnerable countries using the “World Conflict and Human Rights Map,” produced by Leiden University in the Netherlands. The map identifies states with a history of high levels of internal violence and political oppression. Over the course of the next several months, the FFP will conduct rankings of all 191 U.N. member countries to complete the index. These findings will be released on the FfP Web site as they become available.

Q: How were the rankings calculated?

A: The FfP used its Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), an original methodology it has developed and tested over the past 10 years. CAST is a flexible model that has the capability to employ a four-step trend-line analysis, consisting of (1) rating 12 indicators, (2) assessing the capabilities of five core state institutions, (3) identifying idiosyncratic factors and surprises, and (4) placing countries on a conflict map that shows the risk history of countries being analyzed. For the Failed States Index, CAST was used to obtain a snapshot of countries at risk, focusing on the 12 indicators. CAST software indexed and scanned tens of thousands of print and broadcast media sources using Boolean logic. To collect the articles, the Fund for Peace used Thomson’s Dialog, a data-gathering service that monitors international print, radio, and television outlets from around the world. The data covered the time period May to December 2004.

Q: What are the 12 indicators of conflict measured by CAST?

A: Click here to obtain a full list of the 12 indicators.

Q: What do the colors mean?

A: The color codes in the FOREIGN POLICY article break down the 60 countries shown in the index into three categories: Critical (red), In danger (orange), and Borderline (yellow).

On its Web site, the FfP uses a slightly different classification system. If a country is colored red, it is in a zone with the highest risk of failure, called “Alert.” A country in the Alert zone has an aggregate score of 90 or higher (on a scale of 0–120). A country colored orange is in the “Warning” zone, scoring between 60 and 89.9. A country colored yellow has significant risk and is in the “Monitoring” zone, with an aggregate score between 30 and 59.9. As we add to the index, some countries will fall into the green, or “Sustainable,” zone, in which each has an aggregate score below 29.9.

The color-coding does not necessarily forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. All countries in the red, orange, or yellow categories are considered vulnerable to failure, or have significant parts of their societies prone to weakness or failure. In those societies, the pace and direction of change, either positive or negative, varies. Some in the yellow zone may be failing at a faster rate than those in the orange or red zones and therefore could experience violence sooner. Conversely, some in the red zone, though critical, may exhibit some positive signs of recovery. (Further insights are obtained when the full CAST trend-line methodology is applied over different time periods.)

Q: How does the Fund for Peace define “state failure”?

A: A state is failing when its government is losing physical control of its territory or lacks a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. Other symptoms of state failure include the erosion of authority to make collective decisions, an inability to provide reasonable public services, and the loss of the capacity to interact in formal relations with other states as a full member of the international community. As suggested by the list of 12 indicators, extensive corruption and criminal behavior, inability to collect taxes or otherwise draw on citizen support, large-scale involuntary dislocation of the population, sharp economic decline, group-based inequality, and institutionalized persecution or discrimination are other hallmarks of state failure. States can fail at varying rates of decline through explosion, implosion, or erosion.

Q: How are the scores calculated?

A: The Fund for Peace identified key phrases relating to the 12 indicators of internal conflict and state collapse. Tens of thousands of articles from global and regional open-sourced media were fed into the CAST software, which indexed their content and scanned for the key phrases. Positive and negative measures were weighed in an algorithm to determine the value of the indicators on a scale of 1 to 10. The indicator values are then scrutinized by experts. The aggregate of the values is the country’s Failed States Index score.

Q: How has the methodology been critically reviewed, and how has it been applied?

A: Over the past 10 years, the CAST methodology has been peer reviewed in several different environments, including by independent scholars and experts, as well as educational, government, and private-sector agencies and institutions that have evaluated it for alternative uses. CAST is continually being refined and updated to provide findings for decision makers and to perform new functions. Governments use it to design economic assistance strategies that can reduce the potential for conflict and promote development in fragile states. Militaries use it to strengthen situational awareness, enhance readiness, and apply strategic metrics to evaluate success in stability operations. The private sector uses it to calculate political risk for investment opportunities. Multinational organizations and a range of other users find it useful for modeling and gaming, early warning, and management of complex organizations. Educators use it to train students in analyzing war and peace issues by blending the techniques of information technology with social science.

Q: Will there be updates?

A: Yes, the Fund for Peace plans to rank all countries globally and release its findings as they become available on its Web site.

Q: What can be done to avert further weakening of states at risk and to stimulate recovery?

A. The Failed States Index presents a diagnosis of the problem, a first step in devising strategies for strengthening weak and failing states and stimulating recovery. It offers a profile of a political pathology for which there are many remedies and treatments. The more we can anticipate, monitor, and measure problems, the more we can do to prevent violent breakdowns and protect civilians caught in the crossfire. Remedial strategies should target those indicators that are rated the highest, e.g., focusing on relieving demographic pressures, deep-seated grievances, or economic decline or inequality. Policymakers also must pay more attention to building state institutions, particularly the “core five” institutions: military, police, civil service, the system of justice, and leadership. Policies should be tailored to the needs of each state, monitored and evaluated intensively, and changed, as necessary, if recovery is not occurring.

Q: Have there been success stories of states that pulled back from the brink?

A: Yes. The most dramatic ones are those that did it without outside military or administrative intervention. In the 1970s, analysts predicted dire consequences, including mass famine and internal violence in India, citing rapid population growth, economic mismanagement, and extensive poverty and corruption. Today, though many problems remain, India has turned itself around. It is the world’s largest democracy, with a competitive economy and a representative political system. Similarly, South Africa was headed for a violent race war in the 1980s, but it pulled back from the brink in a negotiated settlement that ushered in a new era of majority rule, a liberal constitution, and the destruction of nuclear weapons. In the 1990s, a number of states collapsed and peacekeeping operations intensified. Some interventions, such as the NATO-led effort in Bosnia, were successful in stopping the fighting but had limited impact in bringing about sustainable security, as foreign troops are still required to keep the peace. Others, such as in Haiti, had initial success in restoring an elected government but could not prevent the country from relapsing into open conflict because state institutions remained weak. And some, such as the intervention in Mozambique, helped a country transition from one that had plunged into a vicious civil war in the 1980s into a nation on the move, with one of the highest rates of economic growth and no internal armed conflict today. Although it is among the top 60 at risk, Mozambique is headed in the right direction.

Q: Some studies suggest that wars are winding down. Your research suggests that there may be much conflict in the making. Who is correct?

A: It depends upon what is being measured, when, and how. Scholars agree that interstate wars are declining, and internal wars have been increasing since the end of the Cold War. The frequency, duration, and seriousness of these wars vary. Different scholars present different pictures of positive and negative trends. For example, the 2005 Peace and Conflict report produced by the University of Maryland argues that there has been a “decline in the global magnitude of armed conflict” but also concedes that “half of the world’s countries have serious weaknesses that call for international scrutiny and engagement.” Weak and failing states represent a new class of conflict, not isolated events; approximately 2 billion people live in countries that have a significant to critical level of risk of collapse. These insecure and unstable states are breeding grounds for terrorism, organized crime, weapons proliferation, humanitarian emergencies, environmental degradation, and political extremism—threats that affect everyone.

Q: Does the public have access to the data in this index?

A: The actual raw data are from millions of news articles and reports, and it is not practical to access it. The index values, however, can be downloaded for free from the Fund for Peace Web site.

Q: What is the Fund for Peace?

A: Founded in 1957 by investment banker Randolph Compton, the Fund for Peace is a nonprofit educational, research, and advocacy organization based in Washington. Its mission is to prevent war and alleviate the conditions that cause war. Since 1996, it has specialized primarily on reducing conflict stemming from weak and failing states.

The work of the FfP is innovative and multifaceted. The FfP creates new tools and strategies for decision makers to make the world a safer place. It does that through original research, education, training, dialogue, and policy advocacy. The fund has accomplished many “firsts,” including producing the Failed States Index. It has incubated several initiatives that were subsequently incorporated into new norms, practices, and policies. For more information on all of its projects, visit its Web site.

Q: Who created the Failed States Index?

A: In addition to outside experts who helped the FfP develop the methodology during its years of testing and validation, the core FfP team consisted of Dr. Pauline H. Baker, president of the FfP; Krista Hendry, the project leader; and Jason Ladnier and Patricia Taft, who provided expert input. The developer and programmer of the CAST software was Mark Clark. The presentation of the index in FOREIGN POLICY was done in collaboration with its editors.