CIAO DATE: 04/2009

Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States: Assessing Sources of Systemic Risk

October 2008

Council on Foreign Relations

Abstract

This Center for Preventive Action Working Paper surveys existing approaches to assessing state fragility and failure within the context of development, conflict, and governance. It examines the risk factors that have been identified through systematic inquiry and research with the goal of improving the prospects for successful conflict prevention and management, and argues that the goal of "early warning" relating to state fragility and failure should be more to inform and temper our expectations for policy response than to trigger costly and risky interventions.

Resource link: Fragility, Instability, and the Failure of States: Assessing Sources of Systemic Risk [PDF] - 253K