Users’ guide on measuring fragility

Although the understanding of the security threats posed by fragile states is still highly hypothetical and merits further investigation, fragile states are often considered an ideal breeding ground for national and international terrorism, organised crime and armed conflict. It is therefore important to understand the causes and dynamics of fragile states. A great number of indices that aim to measure fragility have been developed in response to this. This users’ guide provides a rigorous, comprehensible and user-friendly comparative analysis of eleven indicesthat measure facets of fragility.

The paper is in two parts. The first introduces concepts of fragility and its measurement. This section:

• covers characterisations of fragility; the relevance of fragility to, and linkages with, violent conflict, and applications of quantitative fragility analyses
• explores how to build quantitative, cross-country measures of fragility, uncovering the main features, challenges and pitfalls present in five main stages (the background concept, the systematised concept, the selection and measurement of indicators, the calculation of index scores, and the presentation of results)
• provides a comparative analysis of fragility indices, examining each stage in the building of these indices
• gives the reader guidance on how to select and apply fragility indices.

The second part of the paper catalogues fragility indices, including publication details and in-dpeth information on the properties of each index. The analysis leads to an outline of the index’s strengths and weaknesses as well as its recommended use.

Annexes also provide information on indicators, scores, aggregation methods, and details of other (both quantitative and qualitative) assessment tools not covered in the guide.