Disaggregating state fragility: a method to establish a multidimensional empirical typology

Abstract

This conceptual and methodological article makes the case for a multidimensional empirical typology of state fragility. It presents a framework that defines fragile statehood as deficiencies in one or more of the core functions of the state: authority, capacity and legitimacy. Unlike available indices of state fragility, it suggests a route towards operationalisation that maintains this multidimensionality. The methodology presented should help in future research to identify clusters of countries that exhibit similar constellations of statehood, whereby ‘constellation’ refers to the specific mix of characteristics across the three dimensions. Such an identification of empirical types would fulfil a demand that exists both in academic research and among policy circles for finding a more realistic model of fragility at an intermediate level between single-case analyses and the far-too-broad category of state fragility.

Keywords:

• fragile states
• statehood
• fragility
• state building
• typology
• mixture models

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge comments and advice provided at various stages by Aaron Clauset, Jörg Faust, Rachel Gisselquist, Gary Goertz, Kristian Gleditsch, Joe Hewitt, Seth Kaplan, Andrew Mack, Imme Scholz, Stella Seibert-Palascino, Daniel Stegmüller, Mario Stumm and two anonymous reviewers, as well as by members of the World Bank’s IDA Working Group on Fragile and Conflict-affected Countries at a meeting in September 2011.

Notes

1. The quality of causal links between state fragility and some of the global threats most commonly referred to, such as terrorism or international crime, is rather dubious. See Patrick, Weak Links.

2. Gros, “Towards a Taxonomy.”

3. Call, “The Fallacy.”

4. European Communities, European Report on Development; OECD, Supporting Statebuilding; and World Bank, World Development Report 2011.

5. These documents and the processes behind them have contributed substantially to a more nuanced understanding of the underlying conflicts in fragile states. The tendency of overly state-centric approaches that Call criticised is increasingly balanced by the recognition that the legitimacy of political institutions, justice and inclusion are key elements in overcoming state fragility.

6. For a comprehensive overview of state fragility indices, see Fabra Mata and Ziaja, Users’ Guide.

7. Ibid; Gutiérrez Sanín, “Evaluating State Performance”; Ziaja, “What do Fragility Indices Measure?”; and Gisselquist, “Developing and Evaluating Governance Indexes.” With respect to their widespread ‘use and abuse’, fragility indicators have followed in the footsteps of governance indicators, which were beset with similar problems. See Arndt and Oman, Uses and Abuses.

8. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/fragile-states-2014.

9. Patrick, Weak Links, 31.

10. For a discussion of the bureaucratic logic of aid organisations using the example of donor fragmentation, see Knack and Rahman, “Donor Fragmentation.” For an application of this idea to the context of fragile states, see Faust et al., “Foreign Aid,” 12–14.

11. Fukuyama, State-building; Hameiri, “Failed States”; Jones et al., From Fragility to Resilience; and Kaplan, Fixing Fragile States.

12. Rotberg, State Failure; Paris, At War’s End; Schlichte, The Dynamics of States; and Call and Wyeth, Building States.

13. Fearon and Laitin, “Neotrusteeship”; Bratton and Chang, “State Building”; and Englehart, “State Capacity”. Most of these studies ignore previous works on state weakness, such as Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist”; Migdal, Strong Societies; Helman and Ratner “Saving Failed States”; and Gros, “Towards a Taxonomy.”

14. Ziaja, “What do Fragility Indices Measure?,” 44–45.

15. Milliken and Krause, “State Failure”; Commission on Weak States and US National Security, On the Brink; Schneckener, States at Risk; Ghani et al., Closing the Sovereignty Gap; Patrick, “Weak States”; Patrick, Weak Links; Cliffe and Manning, “Practical Approaches”; Carment et al., Security, Development, and the Fragile State; Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’”; and Stewart and Brown, Fragile States.

16. Carment et al., Security, Development, and the Fragile State.

17. Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’.”

18. Giraudy takes a similar methodological approach to suggesting a typology of states by ‘state strength’. Giraudy, “Conceptualizing State Strength.”

19. Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’,” 305. It was also a broadly shared view among OECD donor agencies during much of the 2000s that fragile states were those that were either unable or unwilling to carry out key tasks.

20. Carment et al., Security, Development, and the Fragile State; and Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’.”

21. Cliffe and Manning, “Practical Approaches.” In addition, Cliffe and Manning consider the provision of rule of law to be a crucial aspect closely linked to the security function (rather than to state capacity).

22. Rice and Patrick, Index of State Weakness.

23. Carment et al., Security, Development, and the Fragile State; Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’”; and Commission on Weak States and US National Security, On the Brink.

24. Tilly, “War Making.”

25. North et al., Violence and Social Orders.

26. OECD, Service Delivery.

27. Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft.

28. Anderson, Imagined Communities.

29. Adcock and Collier, “Measurement Validity.”

30. Kaufmann et al., Governance Matters VIII.

31. Goertz and Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures, 31.

32. An example from the indicators described below could be that the highest homicide rate to be found anywhere in the world does not necessarily imply the same low degree of authority as the highest rate of battle deaths does.

33. Fabra Mata and Ziaja, Users’ Guide.

34. Goertz and Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures, 150–160.

35. Gleditsch, “On Ignoring Missing Data.”

36. Honaker and King, “What do to about Missing Values.”

37. Bertelsmann Stiftung, Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 73.

38. Kaufmann et al., Governance Matters VIII.

39. UCDP, Battle-related Deaths Dataset.

40. UNODC, Homicide Counts.

41. Banks and Wilson, Cross-national Time-series.

42. Eizenstat et al., “Rebuilding Weak States.”

43. UNESCO, Institute for Statistics Web Glossary.

44. Bertelsmann Stiftung, Bertelsmann Transformation Index, 74.

45. The PRS Group, International Country Risk Guide.

46. Wintrobe, The Political Economy; and Dogan, “Conceptions of Legitimacy,” 120.

47. Gibney et al., Political Terror Scale.

48. Cingranelli and Richards, “Respect for Human Rights.”

49. Wood and Gibney, “The Political Terror Scale.”

50. RSF, World Press Freedom Index.

51. Freedom House, Freedom of the Press. For a critical assessment, see Schneider, Media Freedom Indices.

52. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty.

53. UNHCR, UNHCR Statistical.

54. Munck and Verkuilen, “Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy.”

55. Fraley and Raftery, MCLUST Version 3.

56. Ahlquist and Breunig, “Model-based Clustering”; and Grimmer and King, “General Purpose Computer-assisted Clustering and Conceptualization.”

57. Grimmer and King, “Clustering and Conceptualization.”

58. Gisselquist, “Developing and Evaluating Governance Indexes.”

59. Mearsheimer and Walt, “Leaving Theory Behind”; and Schrodt, “Seven Deadly Sins.”

Additional information

Funding

Research towards this paper was in part funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) under a research grant on Transformation and Development in Fragile States. The paper’s approach and findings are the sole responsibility of the authors and should in no way be taken to represent the views of BMZ or of any of the organisations and individuals mentioned above.