BY PATRICIA TAFT The top several tiers of the annual Failed States Index (FSI) are often occupied not only by weak and fractured states at risk for conflict, but also states that have, over the years, been the proverbial thorns in the side of the international community. Each year these chart toppers, often impervious by […]
Category Archives: Patricia Taft
Failed States Index 2013: The Book
- 24 June 2013
BY J.J. MESSNER, NATE HAKEN, KRISTA HENDRY, PATRICIA TAFT, KENDALL LAWRENCE, SEBASTIAN PAVLOU, FELIPE UMANA The Failed States Index, produced by The Fund for Peace, is a critical tool in highlighting not only the normal pressures that all states experience, but also in identifying when those pressures are pushing a state towards the brink of […]
The Dark Side of State Building: South Sudan
- 24 June 2013
BY NATE HAKEN AND PATRICIA TAFT For sustainable human security, statebuilding is the only endgame. Absent the state, traditional mechanisms and authority structures might indeed manage communal issues, perhaps even better than would the state. Trans-communal issues like environmental degradation, complex humanitarian emergencies, and large scale conflict, however, go beyond the jurisdiction and capacity of […]
National Reconciliation in Grand Gedeh
- 08 March 2013
BY PATRICIA TAFT AND GEORGE WAH WILLIAMS On a clear day in the middle of the dry season, it can take up to fifteen hours to travel less than 475 kilometers (350 miles) from Liberia’s capital city of Monrovia to Zwedru, the capital of Grand Gedeh County. Grand Gedeh lies in the southeast corner of […]
Turning the Page on Charles Taylor
- 08 November 2012
BY KENDALL LAWRENCE, NATE HAKEN, PATRICIA TAFT AND NORA LOCASAR On April 26, 2012, the International Criminal Court convicted Liberia’s former president Charles Taylor for his role in the commission of crimes against humanity during the war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. For Sierra Leone, this brought a dark chapter to a close — […]