Category Archives: People

Greek Life: Understanding the Ramifications of State Fragility

BY LOGAN CUTHBERT The term “Grexit” [1] has become a mainstay of political and economic discourse in recent times, becoming a necessary shorthand for one of the most significant challenges facing Europe in recent decades. The Grexit example demonstrates a number of important concepts: first, that in our highly globalized world, the struggles of one […]

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Conflict Bulletin: Imo State – Patterns and Trends, 2012-2015

BY NATE HAKEN AND PATRICIA TAFT* Imo state has a population of approximately 3.9 million people, according to the 2006 census. The population is predominantly Igbo (98%). The capital city of Owerri is the largest in the state. Imo is made up of 27 Local Government Areas (LGAs). Natural resources include palm oil, mahogany, crude […]

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Violence Affecting Women and Girls Monthly Memo – May 2015

This memo covers the month of May 2015 (data coding and uploading lags by a month) for Borno, Yobe, Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Rivers, Bayelsa, and Delta.

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Violence Affecting Women and Girls Quarterly Report 4

BY PATRICIA TAFT* The following report summarizes the main findings as detailed in three memos produced during the fourth quarter of data collection and analysis. This quarterly report covers the time period from February through April 2015. *Kendall Lawrence and Hannah Blyth also contributed to this report. Download the full report in PDF format

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Sparkling Finnish: Sustainable Scandinavia

BY HANNAH BLYTH AND J.J. MESSNER Every year, the most stable end of the Fragile States Index appears to tell a familiar story. Since the Fund for Peace began assessing all major countries in 2006, Scandinavia has held a near-monopoly on the least fragile end of the Index.

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Looking Beneath the Total Score: United States

BY NATE HAKEN As the United States heads into a heated political campaign season, candidates are beginning to frame their take on the social, economic, and political track the country is on and what they would do to calibrate those trajectories. Certainly, to listen to pundits you might suppose that the U.S. is either going […]

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Acropolis Wow: Greece Continues on a Slippery Slope

BY SEBASTIAN PAVLOU Frequently, attention tends to focus on countries at the most fragile end of the Fragile States Index, the inherent assumption being that perhaps those are the only countries we need worry about. But just as important as focusing upon – and actively addressing – the problems besetting countries at the worst end […]

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A Reform Agenda: Cuba Comes in from the Cold

BY PATRICIA TAFT AND KENDALL LAWRENCE At the end of 2014, Cuba suddenly became news again when U.S. President Obama announced a plan to normalize relations with the country after nearly fifty years of political and economic isolation. But even before the announcement, Cuba was already on track to be one of the most improved […]

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A Long Way from the Orange Revolution: Ukraine’s Fall from Grace

BY HANNAH BLYTH With the memories of optimism that came with the 2004 Orange Revolution fading, 2014 saw Ukraine once again become a regular fixture in the media headlines, but this time for far less hopeful reasons. The removal of a president, incursions by Russian-backed rebel forces and conflict throughout much of the country’s east, […]

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Total Scores Are Not All That They Seem: The Cases of Iran, Lebanon, and Russia

BY HANNAH BLYTH In viewing the annual Fragile States Index scores for a particular country, it is important to look at the underlying indicators to properly understand a country’s challenges and performance. Even where a country may have an overall trend in one direction, its individual indicators may actually be heading in very different directions. […]

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