What is the most stable country in the world? Which is the most fragile? What determines those qualities? In 2017, South Sudan was ranked the most fragile country by The Fund for Peace, an organization that publishes the Fragile States Index (FSI) every year. Finland was judged the most stable. Measured on 12 indicators based on social, economic and political factors, the Index ranks 178 countries from the most fragile to the least over the past year. It aims to identify potential risk of social and political turmoil and conflict. But what do those numbers mean? And do they really matter? This year, The Cipher Brief is a media partner with the FSI, so Executive Producer Leone Lakhani sat down with JJ Messner, Executive Director of The Fund for Peace, to break down the numbers and explain why the U.S. and UK stuck out in this year’s index.
The Cipher Brief: When you look at the top ten, there’s little difference from last year. Number 1 is South Sudan. Then you have the likes of Somalia, Yemen, Syria, which are not surprising given the volatility they’ve experienced in the last few years. But how much emphasis should we be putting on those rankings? Should we really be looking at those numbers?
J.J. Messner: Looking at the top ten, it’s informative for us to know where the major centers of instability and fragility are in the world. But really what is more informative is for us to look at the long-term trends for countries. So, that could be year-on-year to understand the countries that are worse today than they were a year ago. Alternatively, you could look at the 5-year or 10-year trends.
Because the index itself is really a snapshot in time, it’s telling us where countries are right now. The trends are so much more informative because a country can be at the alert end of the index, but it may actually be improving over time. Alternatively, a country might be at the stable end of the index, but if you look at the long-term data, you can see a concerning trend that it is worsening over five or ten years. I think that is where the real story is.
TCB: One of the surprises I saw, and this goes in line with what you’re saying, was Libya. When you look at the list, Libya is not in the top 10. It’s not even in the top 20. It’s 23 this year. So, do we need to look at the long-term trends of Libya? You’ve got a country that has warring factions, doesn’t have any kind of a proper government, but it’s still much lower than many other countries.
JM: This is where looking at the trends is really so much more informative because you’re right that looking at the rankings themselves, Libya is not in the top 10. However, looking at the 10-year trends, Libya is our most worsened country. Of all the 178 countries, Libya has worsened the most over the last 10 years.
On any sort of index, and this one in particular, you do run into the phenomenon of something of a traffic jam, where a number of countries are experiencing fragility and high levels of instability. Once you enter into that crowded field, then the rankings aren’t so important. Rather, what’s important is recognizing that there really are a group of countries – Libya being one of them – that are experiencing high levels of fragility.
When we add up the total scores of all the indicators, it does not mean that all the countries in that band are necessarily at the same point - because they’ll differ on certain indicators. Their trends will be different. So really again, looking at the performance of a country over that long term, really tells you a great deal more about that country.
TCB: Another surprise to me was Pakistan’s place as the most improved. It’s still the 17th most fragile country in the overall ranking. What types of factors contributed to its improvement in the ratings?
JM: There’s really two ways to look at countries that improve over a 12-month period. One, is what I might term “bounce-backs” and the other is “sustainable improvement.” What I mean by that is that a country can experience a shock in one year that drives down its score, and then it will improve back to where it was before, before that shock occurred. I think that is what you see in a country like Pakistan, where it will be our most improved country for this year.
TCB: Speaking of shocks, when you look back at this year, there are certain events that you think of - the terror attacks in France, Belgium and Germany come to mind. But when you look at the actual scores, France actually improved a bit and Germany’s score didn’t change that much. Belgium changed a little bit. So, you’ve got a country like Germany that’s got pressures from refugees and it had a terror attack, but its score hasn’t changed that much in the past few years. Why would that be?
JM: First of all, it’s important to contextualize what the Fragile States Index is looking at. Fundamentally, we’re looking at pressures. Though we don’t explicitly look at resiliency, implicitly we do, because if a certain pressure is being experienced by a country, the degree to which that pressure affects that country will depend somewhat on that country’s level of resilience. If a country has a high level of resiliency, a shock or some kind of pressure will affect it significantly less than if it has a low level of resiliency. So for a country like Germany it could easily be argued, that yes there are some severe pressures that it is experiencing, but it has a high level of resilience.
So, compare Germany with say Belgium, which is experiencing similar pressures from refugee inflows, from terrorist attacks - but the performance between the two countries is significantly different.
You might conclude that perhaps Germany has a higher level of resiliency than does Belgium.
Again, recognize that the Fragile States Index is looking at a vast suite of indicators. A country might, for example, be worsening on two or three indicators but that might be counter-balanced by improvements on another couple of indicators.
TCB: When you talk about indicators, we think about the UK, for instance. We’ve got the impending Brexit, but when you look at the UK’s actual score, there’s a very slight uptick this year. Could this be an example of where you actually need to look at the specific indicators?
JM: “Group grievance” is an interesting indicator for the United Kingdom. At the same time that the United Kingdom improved ever so slightly in the last year, the “group grievance” indicator over the past five years for the United Kingdom has worsened the seventh most in the world.
The only countries that worsened on “group grievance” more than the United Kingdom were the likes of Syria, Yemen and other countries you wouldn’t expect to be in the company of the United Kingdom.
TCB: You mentioned “group grievance” in the UK had worsened, but the U.S. followed a similar kind of pattern.
JM: It did, and this was what was just as surprising, slash, concerning. When we saw the UK had that worsening trend on “group grievance,” it was tied with the United States. If one looks at the campaign behind Brexit, if one looks at the highly divisive presidential campaign here in the United States, one can certainly draw parallels, and this really is not a one-off. It demonstrates in the data that the divisiveness within politics and the seeking by some actors to play on divisions within society for political gain has been problematic for some time. It is a trend that is worsening.
TCB: What is the potential for spillover effect? For instance, Brazil – the largest country in Latin America – and South Africa, which was always seen as an economic powerhouse in Africa, are both worsening. How much of an impact would those types of countries have on their regions?
JM: There is certainly spillover that is detected in Fragile States Index scores. For a country like Brazil or South Africa that is an economic engine for the region, that spillover may be detected, but the degree that it is causally linked is a little harder to determine.
What we do find from a causal link perspective is a little easier to chart. For instance, security risks: if a country is neighboring another country that has severe security problems – then we can definitely see a spillover there.
A good example of this is Kenya, where I think arguably, the pressure is much higher than it would otherwise be if it were not neighboring Somalia. The instability has a clear spillover effect. Let’s not forget that though we place enormous attention on the flow of Syrian refugees into Europe – or even more locally into Turkey and Jordan – the largest refugee camp in the world is still located in Kenya.
TCB: How do you collect the data? Is it difficult to get complete, transparent numbers in some of these countries – the more authoritarian regimes or countries that are closed off, like North Korea? How do you get those numbers?
JM: On the one hand, we analyze over 50 million data points a year by applying an algorithm that is able to quantify what is fundamentally qualitative data. Because it is an algorithm and not a person, it shows no fear nor favor, and it is an objective process.
We then triangulate against quantitative data sets that are provided by international agencies. We don’t rely on data sets that are provided by specific individual governments because obviously, there are inherent risks in the objectivity of some of those data sets, and also practical compatibility problems.
But the key is triangulation of the qualitative data against the quantitative data sets, and then against expert validation that “Yes, we believe, based on what we understand about a country, its pressures or improvements, that this is valid.”
TCB: Are there trends that you think are not obvious that people should be looking out for when they are looking at the FSI?
JM: I think that the obvious countries are the ones that we tend to look to automatically. With a country like Syria, for example, we’re going to look at the index and look to its performance because it is one that is discussed widely. But there is plenty in the FSI that is trying to tell us a story, but we are not really thinking to listen.
For instance, the most improved country over the past decade is Cuba, a country that the United States still has sanctions against, and is still, particularly in U.S. political discourse, much maligned. Yet, what we have been able to chart, from an objective point of view, is that Cuba has been on a path of improvement over the past 10 years. As much as it is tempting to look at countries that are worsening, it is just as important to recognize the countries that are improving.
For more on our interview with J.J. Messner, click here to listen to our full 15 Minutes Podcast.
