UNDERSTANDING STATE FRAGILITY: DISCOURSE AND CONCEPTUAL UNDERPINNINGS OF FAILED AND FRAGILE STATES

Abstract

‘Fragility’ is undermining developing countries of the world in managing challenges of capacity, legitimacy, and authority in their designated territories. The donor organizations and international developmental agencies label such countries as failing, failed, or fragile because they are unable to perform and fall short to deliver basic services to their population. They categorize such states based on multiple indices and reflect their performance through indexes in all sectors which shaped the perception of such states around the globe and the world perceives them with pre-determined notions. This article critically examines the methods, frameworks, or approaches used by such donor and international organizations to trace the origin of the concept of ‘fragility’. The brief historical context of such indexes like World Bank, FSI, USAID, DFID, and CIFP, has also been discussed to analyze the purpose and objective of formulating or maintaining a database of failing, failed, and fragile states. Assessment methodology and data collection method
of indexes have also been discussed for a better understanding of the concept. Fragility is a fluid concept and the academic definition of this concept is yet to be ascertained.