Varieties of fragility: implications for aid

Abstract

Aid to fragile states is a major topic for international development. This article explores how unpacking fragility and studying its dimensions and forms can help to develop policy-relevant understandings of how states become more resilient and the role of aid therein. It highlights the particular challenges for donors in dealing with chronically fragile states and those with weak legitimacy, as well as how unpacking fragility can provide traction on how to take ‘local context’ into account. It draws in particular on the contributions to this special issue to provide examples from new analysis of particular fragile state transitions and cross-national perspectives.

Keywords:

• fragile states
• fragility
• foreign aid
• aid effectiveness
• local context
• country ownership

Aid to fragile states and situations has become a major topic for international development, with clear relevance to Third World Studies. Recent statistics show that fragile states received 38% of overseas development assistance (ODA) (or US$53 billion) in 2011.¹ Indeed, support for institutional strengthening in fragile states – ie state building – has become so central to the field that Marquette and Beswick consider it ‘a new development paradigm’.² Donor agencies highlight the fact that fragile states as a group also pose some of the most pressing development challenges. Collectively they have had especially poor performance on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and are thus expected to remain a focus of the international development agenda post-2015.³

Continued discussion also centres on issues of aid effectiveness in fragile states, including both how best to deliver any kind of aid in fragile contexts and whether and how donors might support the transformation of fragile states into more ‘resilient’ ones.⁴ Yet, despite all the attention paid to fragile states in the literature, practitioners and scholars alike frequently express dissatisfaction with the concept of fragility itself. Fragile states have very diverse characteristics.⁵ Meanwhile some observers emphasise the deeply political nature of the concept, satisfying the needs of development and security actors alike, but more useful as a catchall than a precise category for analytical examination.⁶

This article explores how unpacking state fragility and studying its dimensions and forms can help us to better develop and examine policy-relevant hypotheses about how aid-recipient states become more resilient. In particular, it reviews insights drawn from new analysis along these lines, drawing on the contributions to this special issue. This analysis builds both on focused and comparative study of particular countries and on analysis within a broader cross-national perspective.

The rest of the article first provides an overview of the contributions to this special issue and then briefly discusses four key points in turn. First, it discusses the value of unpacking the fragility concept and ways to do so, building on the studies in this collection to highlight its dimensions, degree and duration. Second, in the context of such conceptual unpacking, it discusses the value of distinguishing in particular between ‘temporary’ and ‘chronic’ fragility in appropriately setting expectations for aid, and in identifying and applying best practices and lessons learned. As the studies underscore, we should not expect the experience of state building in chronically fragile states to follow that in temporarily fragile states, nor are lessons learned from the experience of aid to temporarily fragile states necessarily applicable in aid to chronically fragile states. Third, the article considers the particular challenges of dealing with fragile states with weak legitimacy, including inherent tensions faced by donors committed to country ownership of aid initiatives. Finally, the article proposes that these discussions might also help us to be more systematic about the role of ‘local context’ in designing aid policy. The oft-cited advice to ‘take context into account’ is of course correct, but the related suggestion that all factors commonly labelled as such are sui generis is not. Similarities in many factors discussed in terms of local context, such as post-conflict situation, colonial legacies and the nature of the ruling party, are clearly shared across multiple countries and call for more systematic exploration in aid discussions, which is facilitated by consideration of the varieties of fragility.

The articles in this collection

This special issue has its origins in work conducted under the Governance and Fragility theme of UNU-WIDER’s Research and Communication on Foreign Aid (ReCom) programme (2011–13), and particularly the project on ‘Aid and Institution-building in Fragile States: Findings from Comparative Cases’. The majority of the case studies prepared under the latter were published in a 2014 volume of the same name in the ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. The ANNALS volume explored what focused comparative analysis can contribute to the study of aid and institution building, drawing on comparative cases from the end of the Second World War to the present. This set of studies in turn highlighted the value of additional work on the varieties of fragility, including ‘chronic’ versus ‘temporary’ fragility, and its implications for aid policy making – the focus of this special issue.

The issue comprises eight articles, including this introduction. It begins with three articles representing new and innovative efforts on how to unpack the concept of fragility and to consider fragile state transitions within a broader cross-national perspective. Jörn Grävingholt, Sebastian Ziaja and Merle Kreibaum’s article begins the discussion with a critique of existing fragility measures and an argument for a new multidimensional empirical typology, highlighting distinctions between autonomy, capacity and legitimacy. Their approach can identify clusters of countries with similar values across the measured dimensions, as well as allow for disaggregated examination of each dimension. In the next article Daniel Lambach, Eva Johais and Markus Bayer turn to the most extreme form of fragility, state collapse. Focusing on its conceptualisation and measurement, they identify for further study 17 such cases in the postcolonial era. David Carment, Joe Landry, Yiagadeesen Samy and Scott Shaw’s article then draws on the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (CIFP) fragile states framework to study fragile state transitions. Using the CIFP, they identify three types of countries: Type 1 countries caught in fragility traps; Type 2 countries, which have exited fragility; and Type 3 countries, which have moved in and out of fragility. Building on this approach, they explore three country cases, one of each type – Yemen, Bangladesh and Laos – to build and consider hypotheses on state transition.

The next four articles in the collection draw on focused analysis of selected cases to consider the role of aid versus historical institutional and other factors in explaining fragile state transition outcomes. Particular attention is paid in these articles to key sub-Saharan Africa cases, given that a disproportionate share of the states currently considered fragile fall in the region.⁷ Standard listings of fragile states used by the World Bank and OECD, for instance, suggest that sub-Saharan Africa has both a higher share of fragile states than any other region and a larger number of fragile states than all other regions combined.⁸ The classifications presented by Lambach et al and Carment et al (this volume) also suggest that a relatively high proportion of currently fragile states are in the region.

Articles by Jiyoon Kim and Ahmed Helmy Fuady reconsider paired comparisons with Asian Tigers. Since the 1990s a large literature has explored what lessons these rapidly growing economies offer for aid and development.⁹ More recently, as work on fragility has boomed, it has been noted that the Asian Tigers were arguably ‘fragile’ in today’s terms when their periods of development take-off began. Observers have thus begun to consider lessons for fragile states in particular.¹⁰ Kim’s and Fuady’s articles speak to the need for more systematic research in this area. Kim provides historical analysis of post-independence Ghana and post-war South Korea. As Werlin and others have noted, in 1957 both countries had similar levels of GDP per capita and what appeared to be arguably similar development prospects, but Ghana subsequently failed to match South Korea’s rapid economic growth and transformation.¹¹ Fuady also builds on previous comparative analyses to focus on Indonesia and Nigeria, exploring the roots of development divergence during the 1970s and 1980s of these two oil-rich countries.

One often cited explanation for weak statehood in sub-Saharan African states points to their relative youth and the fact that historical and contemporary political boundaries differ. Devon Curtis’s article considers two exceptions, Rwanda and Burundi, each with centralised, pre-colonial kingdoms in their respective regions, as well as multiple other similarities. Controlling for these various factors helps Curtis to isolate and consider the role of aid and other local contextual factors in the two states’ differing experiences with post-war reconstruction.

In the final article Berhanu Abegaz’s analysis highlights weak legitimacy as a core component of fragility, exploring donor efforts at institution building in contemporary Ethiopia, consistently among sub-Saharan Africa’s largest aid recipients.¹² While Ethiopia is a standard inclusion on lists of fragile and conflict-affected states, it has also been labelled a ‘developmental state’ and ‘Africa’s tiger’ as it moves toward middle income, spotlighting how a country can be fragile in some respects and not others at the same time.¹³

Varieties of fragility

A large literature offers excellent discussion and critique of the concept of state fragility and its earlier incarnations – weak states, failed states and collapsed states.¹⁴ In spite of a broad scholarly discomfort with the concept of fragility, however, what to do in ‘fragile states and situations’ remains central and of increasing importance to development policy, underscored by multiple policy statements and initiatives, from the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (2011) to recent discussion surrounding the post-2015 development agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.¹⁵ As Brinkerhoff proposes, considering fragility as a ‘wicked problem set’ – inherently complex, ill-defined and interdependent – may help to explain why this label remains in such widespread use, despite its analytic weaknesses.¹⁶

Considering fragility in this way, Brinkerhoff highlights the value of a ‘problem-solving’ approach as most useful for development policy making, focused on ‘incorporating lessons from the implementation literature and international development practice’, rather than on more work at ‘naming and taming’ of the fragility concept.¹⁷ However, there is also considerable middle ground between these two positions. In particular, if we acknowledge the validity of an ‘ordinary language’ approach to defining state fragility, we might effectively adopt definitions in common use, while exploring at the same time the diversity of the phenomena that they group together.¹⁸ Unpacking fragility in this way can in turn inform consideration of how aid-recipient states become more resilient, and can encourage more systematic thinking on lessons learned from implementation. Such an approach does involve some of what Brinkerhoff labels ‘taming’ – using indicators to simplify the wickedness of the fragility problem set – but the focus is different. Consideration of indicators, along with other data, is directed towards exploration of how variations in fragility may contribute, along with aid and other factors, to different pathways to resilience.

This issue includes two articles that spotlight work towards ‘taming’ the fragility concept. Grävingholt et al discuss a new multidimensional measure, while Lambach et al conceptualise and measure state collapse. As both discuss, beyond naming and taming, such efforts have direct relevance to theory building on the causes of state fragility (and collapse) and to policy making. Carment et al also draw on a ‘taming’ initiative, the CIFP fragile states framework, using it to identify and explore types of fragile state transition paths.

These studies, along with the other four articles in the collection, highlight at least three ways to map varieties of fragility. The first focuses on its component dimensions. Grävingholt et al provide a useful overview of some of the ways in which component dimensions have been conceptualised in the literature,¹⁹ turning in their analysis to three: authority or ‘the control of violence by the state’; capacity or the provision of basic services to the people; and legitimacy or ‘the state’s claim to be the only legitimate actor to set and enforce generally binding rules’.²⁰ Each of these dimensions in turn is seen to represent a particular type of state–society relationship and draws on alternate strands of political theory – corporatist, contractualist and constructivist, respectively.

The terminology used in Grävingholt et al coincides with that used in Carment et al. Authority, legitimacy and capacity in the CIFP’s ‘ALC’ approach, however, are conceived slightly differently. In this approach authority is more broadly ‘the extent to which a state possesses the ability to enact binding legislation over its population, to exercise coercive force over its sovereign territory, to provide core public goods, and to provide a stable and secure environment to its citizens and communities’, while capacity is ‘the potential for a state to mobilise and employ resources towards productive ends’ and legitimacy is ‘the extent to which a particular government commands public loyalty to the governing regime’ and support for its legislation and policy. This approach also draws in each dimension on different theoretical foundations: in conflict, development and security, respectively.²¹

As both studies suggest, varying degrees of authority, capacity and legitimacy are evident across fragile states. Carment et al use these to explore how different dimensions of fragility play out in state transition paths, while Grävingholt et al point to the policy relevance of using different configurations to identify types of fragility. As above, the value of considering fragility’s underlying dimensions independently – including whether a state can be fragile in one area and not in others – is underscored in Abegaz’s analysis of the Ethiopian case in this issue.

A second key way to map varieties of fragility is in terms of degree, both overall and across each dimension. As Lambach et al suggest, collapse is one, relatively rare extreme. While standard metrics name several dozen currently fragile states, Lambach et al identify 17 cases of collapse in the post-colonial era. Of these, nine occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (Angola 1992, Chad 1979, Congo-Kinshasa 1960 and 1996, Guinea-Bissau 1998, Liberia 1990, Sierra Leone 1998, Somalia 1991 and Uganda 1985) and the rest in other regions (Afghanistan 1979 and 2001, Bosnia and Herzegovina 1992, Georgia 1991, Iraq 2003, Laos 1960, Lebanon 1975 and Tajikistan 1992).

A third key way to map varieties of fragility points to its duration or history. In the simplest approach, as discussed further in the next section, we might think of ‘chronic’ versus ‘temporary’ fragility, highlighting the distinction between a state that has never been functional versus one that was once functional and then became fragile as the result of a shock such as war.

Chronic versus temporary fragility

Building on lessons learned from past experience is a natural way to design policy. The 1948 European Recovery Program (ERP or Marshall Plan) in particular has become a touchstone for development thinkers.²² The idea that similarly massive investment and attention can spur development underlies calls for a Marshall Plan for Africa, for instance.²³ The experience of post-Second World War US military occupation and assistance to Germany and Japan has also been drawn on explicitly in thinking about contemporary state building in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond.²⁴ Yet the achievements of recent externally supported state building have been notably more modest.

This divergence stems in part from the misapplication of lessons and expectations from past experience. While post-war Germany and Japan may be ‘fragile and conflict-affected states’ in contemporary terminology, the diversity of phenomena lumped together under this broad category contributes to such misapplication. A key distinction illustrated in the ‘Aid and Institution-building’ project from which this special issue emerges is that between temporarily and chronically fragile –post-war Japan as compared to Afghanistan,²⁵ South Korea and Taiwan as compared to South Vietnam,²⁶ and South Korea as compared to Ghana (see Kim, this volume). As these cases suggest, supporting the rebuilding of a once capable state (even a colonial one) is different from building a capable state where one has never existed. The simple – but often ignored – policy implication is that lessons and expectations from temporarily fragile states are most relevant to other temporarily fragile states and not necessarily relevant to chronically fragile states.

Carment et al’s discussion of three types of state transitions adds additional nuance to consideration of duration. In distinguishing between states caught in fragility traps and those that have moved in and out of fragility, their analysis can help to build further intuitions about chronic versus temporary fragility in this sense. The CIFP dataset reveals notable continuity in fragility – half of the 20 most fragile states in 1980 are still in the top 20 in 2012 – suggesting a hard core of states caught in fragility traps. Analysis reveals that relatively weak ‘authority’ is among the emblematic characteristics of such trapped states, suggesting that in fragile states of this type ‘focusing first on interventions that bolster authority structures are the best strategy for moving these states along the path to stability’. More broadly Carment et al’s analysis suggests that different strategies of intervention, prioritisation and sequencing may be advisable for countries with different durations or histories of fragility.

Weak legitimacy and country ownership

Donor commitment to country ownership of aid initiatives since the Paris Declaration in 2005 has added new layers of complexity to discussions of aid to fragile states. On the one hand, it is a truism of the aid effectiveness literature that ‘country owned’ initiatives are more likely to succeed. The role of development-minded local policy makers in managing aid investments is well illustrated in this special issue in both Kim’s analysis of South Korea and Fuady’s of Indonesia. On the other hand, fragile states are regularly defined by the challenges they face in terms of the capacity or commitment of state authorities to support national development, which highlights inherent tensions with the idea that donors can expect to work through country-owned reform in these situations.²⁷

Supporting country-owned reform is particularly problematic in situations where the legitimacy of the state or of the governing regime is weak. Country ownership as conceived under the Paris Agreement was effectively treated as synonymous with domestic government ownership, particularly by the executive branch.²⁸ While public opinion in any country is far from homogeneous and no national government reflects the views of all those living within its borders, this approach would appear basically sound when the state and governing regime have broad legitimacy to make decisions and enforce rules on behalf of the population, particularly when such legitimacy is demonstrated through the results of free and fair elections. Imperfect as it may be, this approach may also help in such situations to guard against the dangers of international actors meddling in the political affairs of sovereign countries and undermining local accountability.

In fragile states, as well as in many non-fragile developing countries, however, this sort of broad legitimacy is far from the norm. Leaderships may not be selected through accountability mechanisms such as free and fair elections, and elections, if held, may be flawed. The state and its governing regime may then represent the interests of but a small fraction of the country’s population. When the legitimacy of the state and governing regime is weak or contested, how to support country ownership is far less clear. In light of such issues, the list of actors involved in ‘democratic ownership’ was expanded under the Accra Agreement (2008) to include parliamentarians, civil society and local government, and, in the Busan Partnership (2011), the private sector.²⁹ In such situations a strong case may be made, for instance, for supporting democracy and human rights criteria for assistance and for providing aid directly to local (subnational) governments and nongovernmental organisations. We may also ask what role donors can play proactively in supporting the emergence of more legitimate and development-minded local leaderships.³⁰

At the same time, particularly in fragile states, donors face apparent trade-offs over how much to prioritise attention to legitimacy in the face of other pressing development needs. Should donors condition the provision of assistance on some minimal degree of legitimacy even if this position negatively affects their ability to assist particularly needy populations? Should donors provide assistance to governments that have been effective in supporting some areas of national development, while at the same time infringing upon the civil and political rights that allow populations to hold their governments accountable? Will support for illegitimate governments ultimately undermine developmental objectives, or should we expect development to support the emergence of more legitimate (democratic) governance?³¹

Abegaz’s discussion of the Ethiopian case in this issue highlights such tensions well. Focusing on the period 1991 to 2014, he identifies an ‘aid-institutions paradox’ in which aid at once boosted the technocratic capacity of state institutions while weakening the private sector and independent civic and political organisations. Despite professed commitments, Abegaz argues, donors turned a blind eye to issues of governance and human rights that went against the interests of the Ethiopian governing regime, using aid primarily to support geostrategic and poverty reduction objectives shared with the regime. This approach, he suggests, has ultimately meant that aid has done little to support the real strengthening of state legitimacy and the greater overall resilience of the state.

Rwanda is another case frequently cited in discussions of aid and legitimacy. While Rwanda has made clear progress since the genocide in 1994 in terms of economic growth, public sector management and regulatory reform, its record with respect to democracy and respect for civil and political rights receives strong criticism. Organisations such as Human Rights Watch have thus sharply criticised major donors to Rwanda.³² Curtis’s analysis of post-war Burundi and Rwanda in this issue adds further nuance to such discussions. In particular, Curtis finds that, through the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Rwandan state has been able to better manage donors, thanks in part to its more centralised control, image as an effective moderniser and effective use of the language of local ownership. The more fractured ruling party in Burundi, by contrast, has been less effective in donor relations – despite what has been arguably greater emphasis on democracy and inclusivity. This has ‘worrying implications’, Curtis notes, ‘as it suggests that, under some conditions, more monolithic, authoritarian and repressive regimes can better manage and influence donors’. Donors should be careful of this possibility, particularly in adopting an approach to country ownership focused on the executive branch.

Unpacking local context: considering similarities across fragile states

A final way in which unpacking fragility may help to improve aid to fragile states and situations is in relation to ‘local context’. A major principle in the policy literature on aid effectiveness, particularly in fragile states, is that ‘context matters’ and should be taken into account.³³ Few would disagree with this principle, but without refinement it is not especially useful. Context can refer to a wide range of structural, institutional, cultural, individual and historical factors. Which contextual factors do we expect to be most important? How specifically do we expect them to influence aid effectiveness? What insights can be gleaned from past experience in terms of what donors can do, if anything, to mitigate the negative influences of contextual factors on aid effectiveness?

Analysis of fragile state transitions within a comparative and cross-national perspective can be especially useful in providing a way forward to address these questions. In this issue, for instance, Kim’s analysis of Ghana and South Korea highlights the long-running influence of colonial legacies in shaping the capacities and authority of modern states. This contextual factor, combined with the specific characteristics of foreign assistance in these two cases, she argues, are key to understanding the divergent development trajectories of the two countries since the late 1950s. Focusing on two cases with much more similar colonial legacies, Curtis’s analysis of Burundi and Rwanda explores other key local contextual factors: how ruling parties were established and evolved, and how each country’s civil war ended. Fuady’s analysis of Indonesia and Nigeria also spotlights the role of political elites, exploring how consideration of ‘domestic policy preference’ and the domestic management of foreign aid can help to explain development divergence. Fuady’s analysis similarly builds on a rich comparative literature on these two countries; as he notes, this literature has highlighted the role of structural and institutional factors – in particular, Nigeria’s ethnic, religious and political fragmentation – in explaining divergent experiences, and his analysis complements these discussions.

In another vein, as the discussion above highlights, the distinctions that Kim in particular draws between the historical legacies of the state in post-independence Ghana and post-war South Korea are also closely tied to chronic versus temporary fragility. Thus unpacking fragility can help us to narrow down what can be addressed in terms of identified varieties of fragility versus ‘local context’. In a similar way Carment et al’s consideration of three types of fragile state transitions, and the different configurations of authority, legitimacy and capacity that may characterise each, speak to another approach at systematising our consideration of fragile local contexts.

Do these experiences provide any insights in terms of what donors can do to mitigate the ‘negative’ influence of contextual factors? At first glance these discussions do not give much cause for optimism. In Kim’s and Fuady’s analyses, for instance, deep historical and structural legacies are shown to have long-running effects on development prospects, even in countries that have received substantial foreign assistance. However, each analysis also suggests some points for further consideration: Kim’s analysis of the different characteristics of foreign aid in South Korea and Ghana, for instance, is consistent with the potential of greater harmonisation to improve aid effectiveness. Fuady’s discussion illustrates, among other points, how the Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia (IGGI) lent external technical support to Indonesian technocrats in pursuing developmental reforms, an approach that might be considered elsewhere. More broadly Carment et al’s discussion supports further consideration of different sequencing of policy interventions in different types of fragile contexts.

Conclusion

Unpacking state fragility and considering its dimensions and forms can help us to better develop and test hypotheses about how aid-recipient states become more resilient, a process of theory building that in turn can inform (evidence-based) aid policy making. This article has spotlighted four points supported by the studies in this special issue: (1) varieties of fragility can be identified in terms of dimensions, degree and duration, with major implications for policy beyond ‘naming’ and ‘taming’; (2) it is particularly important to distinguish between temporary and chronic fragility in appropriately setting expectations for aid and identifying and applying best practices; (3) there are serious challenges in dealing with fragile states with weak legitimacy, including inherent tensions faced by donors committed to country ownership of aid initiatives; and (4) consideration of varieties of fragility can help us to better ‘take context as the starting point’, a key principle for aid to fragile states.

It has become a truism that one-size-fits-all policies do not work in development and aid, whether in fragile or non-fragile states. While this is certainly the case, it is sometimes confused with a broader claim that ‘off-the-rack’ policies should be entirely avoided. In contrast, the approach outlined in this article points us towards paying more attention to developing our off-the-rack range. Through systematic thinking about the varieties of fragility and the sorts of policies that have worked and could work in each, we can aim towards elaborating a range of policy models geared to different types. Such models could then be tailored to particular situations for a more bespoke fit. In other words, ‘local context’ surely matters, but not all contextual factors affecting aid effectiveness are sui generis. A number of factors, such as post-conflict situation, colonial legacies and the nature of the ruling party lend themselves to more systematic investigation. Countries in particular regions may also be more likely to share certain contextual characteristics. The more we can develop our intuitions about similarities across cases and build – appropriately – on approaches that have worked, the better.

Notes on contributor

Rachel M. Gisselquist is Research Fellow with UNU-WIDER. She works on the politics of the developing world, with particular attention to ethnic politics and group-based inequality, state fragility, governance, and democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa. Her work has appeared in various journals and edited volumes. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Acknowledgements

For helpful comments I thank in particular Shahid Qadir and the participants in the ReCom project on ‘Aid and Institution-building in Fragile States: Findings from Comparative Cases’.

Additional information

Funding

This special issue was supported by UNU-WIDER, and in particular presents work developed under its Research and Communication on Foreign Aid (ReCom) programme (2011–13). We gratefully acknowledge specific programme contributions from the governments of Denmark (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Danida) and Sweden (Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency – SIDA) for ReCom, as well as core financial support to the UNU-WIDER work programme from the governments of Denmark, Finland, Sweden and the UK.

Notes

1. OECD, Fragile States 2014, 24.

2. Marquette and Beswick, “State Building, Security and Development.”

3. OECD, States of Fragility 2015.

4. For example, World Bank, World Development Report; OECD, Concepts and Dilemmas; Manning and Trzeciak-Duval, “Situations of Fragility”; Baranyi and Desrosiers, “Development Cooperation”; Cammack et al., Donors and the ‘Fragile States’ Agenda; Gisselquist, “Aid and Institution-building”; and OECD, States of Fragility 2015.

5. Addison, “The Political Economy of Fragile States.”

6. Grimm et al., “‘Fragile States’.”

7. Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist”; and Englebert and Tull, “Postconflict Reconstruction in Africa.”

8. Gisselquist, State Capacity.

9. Stiglitz, “Some Lessons”; Lin and Vu, The Practice of Industrial Policy; Rodrik, “Getting Interventions Right”; and Page, “The East Asian Miracle.”

10. Briscoe, Chasing the Tigers.

11. Werlin, “Ghana and South Korea.”

12. Easterly, The Tyranny of Experts.

13. Feyissa Dori, “Ethiopia’s ‘African Tiger’.”

14. For example, Engberg-Pedersen et al., Fragile Situations; Call, “The Fallacy of the ‘Failed State’”; Gros, “Towards a Taxonomy”; Grimm et al., “‘Fragile States’”; and Carment et al., “The Causes and Measurement.”

15. IEG, World Bank Group Assistance; and OECD, States of Fragility 2015.

16. Brinkerhoff, “State Fragility and Failure.”

17. Ibid., 333.

18. See Fearon and Laitin, “Ordinary Language,” 65–86; and Gerring, Social Science Methodology.

19. For example, Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’”; Milliken and Krause, “State Failure, State Collapse”; Carment et al., Security, Development; and Stewart and Brown, Fragile States.

20. This approach resembles that of Call, “Beyond the ‘Failed State’”; and the Commission on Weak States and US National Security, On the Brink.

21. Carment et al., “State Fragility.”

22. See Eichengreen et al., “The Marshall Plan.”

23. Hubbard, “Think Again.”

24. Jennings, The Road Ahead; Dobbins et al., America’s Role in Nation-building; Serafino et al., US Occupation Assistance; and Hubbard and Duggan, The Aid Trap.

25. Monten, “Intervention and State-building.”

26. Gray, “US Aid and Uneven Development.”

27. Booth, “Aid Effectiveness.”

28. Lekvall, Development First, 66.

29. Ibid.

30. Booth, “Aid Effectiveness.”

31. Easterly, The Tyranny of Experts.

32. Human Rights Watch, “Human Rights Watch Submission.”

33. See, for example, OECD, Fragile States Principles.