DUSHANBE, June 21, 2011, Asia-Plus – The 2011 Failed States Index (FSI) published by the United States think-tank Fund for Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy has ranked Tajikistan 39th among 177 nations. Tajikistan shares this place with Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyzstan is ranked 31st and Russia is ranked 82nd.
Three African states — Somalia, Chad, and Sudan — once again top this year”s Failed States Index, the annual ranking prepared by the Fund for Peace and published by Foreign Policy of the world”s most vulnerable countries. For four years in a row, Somalia has held the No. 1 spot, indicating the depth of the crisis in the international community”s longest-running failure.
The new edition of the index draws on some 130,000 publicly available sources to analyze 177 countries and rate them on 12 indicators of pressure on the state during the year 2010 — from refugee flows to poverty, public services to security threats. And the latest results show how much the 2008 economic crisis and its ripple effects everywhere, from collapsing trade to soaring food prices to stagnant investment, are still haunting the world.
The report notes that perhaps the biggest challenge of all for 2011 will be dealing with the global fallout of the Arab revolutions, which began in Tunisia and quickly spread to Egypt, Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and Syria. “Few could have predicted that a street vendor”s humiliation would be the spark that set an entire region ablaze, with consequences that may reach far beyond the Middle East. After all, if peaceful protesters can unseat an entrenched dictator in Cairo, why can”t they take to the repressed streets of Tashkent or Rangoon?”
The term failed state is often used by political commentators and journalists to describe a state perceived as having failed at some of the basic conditions and responsibilities of a sovereign government. In order to make this definition more precise, the following attributes, proposed by the Fund for Peace, are often used to characterize a failed state: loss of control of its territory, or of the monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force therein; erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions; an inability to provide public services; and an inability to interact with other states as a full member of the international community. Often a failed nation is characterized by social, political, and economic failure.
Since 2005 the Fund for Peace and the magazine Foreign Policy, publishes an annual index called the Failed States Index. The list only assesses sovereign states (determined by membership in the United Nations). Ranking is based on the total scores of the 12 indicators (see below.) For each indicator, the ratings are placed on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being the lowest intensity (most stable) and 10 being the highest intensity (least stable). The total score is the sum of the 12 indicators and is on a scale of 0-120. The index”s ranks are based on twelve indicators of state vulnerability – four social, two economic and six political: 1) demographic pressures; 2) Massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples; 3) legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance; 4) Chronic and sustained human flight; 5) Uneven economic development along group lines; 6) sharp and/or severe economic decline; 7) criminalization and/or delegitimization of the state; 8) progressive deterioration of public services; 9) widespread violation of human rights; 10) security apparatus as ‘state within a state’; 11) rise of factionalized elites; and 12) intervention of other states or external factors.
The indicators are not designed to forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. Instead, they are meant to measure a state”s vulnerability to collapse or conflict. All countries in the red (Alert, FSI of 90 or more), orange (Warning, FSI of 60 or more), or yellow (Moderate, FSI of 30 or more) categories display some features that make parts of their societies and institutions vulnerable to failure. Some in the yellow zone may be failing at a faster rate than those in the more dangerous orange or red zones, and therefore could experience violence sooner. Conversely, some in the red zone, though critical, may exhibit some positive signs of recovery or be deteriorating slowly, giving them time to adopt mitigating strategies.
