Journal article | Zeitschriftenartikel
Handle with care! A qualitative comparison of the fragile states index's bottom three countries; Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan
For the past four years, the Fund for Peace has ranked the Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan as the "most fragile states' in the world, in its annual Fragile States Index (FSI). The three countries" almost identical scores suggest comparability; however, critics raise concerns about the FSI's data aggregation methods, and its conflation of causes and consequences. This article treads the uncharted path of unpacking the empirical realities that hide behind FSI indicators. Drawing on data collected during field research in the three states, the authors investigate three security indicators (security apparatus, factionalized elites, and external intervention) and propose an alternative, qualitative appreciation. Each country's fragility is based on how security forces, elites and interventions evolved over time and installed themselves differently in each region of the country. The qualitative assessment presented here shows that not every indicator matters in all cases at all times or throughout the country. Most crucially, the authors unveil enormous differences between and within the FSI's three "most fragile states". Such variations call for better-adapted and more flexible intervention strategies, and for quantitative comparisons to be qualitatively grounded.
- Sprache
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Englisch
- Umfang
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Seite(n): 277-300
- ISSN
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1467-7660
- Anmerkungen
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Status: Veröffentlichungsversion; begutachtet (peer reviewed)
- Erschienen in
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Development and Change, 50(2)
Friedens- und Konfliktforschung, Sicherheitspolitik
Krisenintervention
Elite
Südsudan
Strategie
vergleichende Forschung
Intervention
Systemstabilisierung
Somalia
Zentralafrikanische Republik
Sicherheit
regionaler Vergleich
Friedenssicherung
Vergleich
Vries, Lotje De
Mehler, Andreas
- DOI
- URN
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urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-61779-9
- Rechteinformation
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GESIS - Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften. Bibliothek Köln
- Letzte Aktualisierung
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21.06.2024, 16:27 MESZ
Objekttyp
- Zeitschriftenartikel
Beteiligte
- Glawion, Tim
- Vries, Lotje De
- Mehler, Andreas
Entstanden
- 2018