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17 Foreign Pol'y Bull. 3 (2007)

handle is hein.journals/fnpbt17 and id is 1 raw text is: Global Report Global Report on Conflict, Governance and State Fragility 2007 Global Report on Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility 2007: Gauging System Performance and Fragility in the Globalization Era Monty G Marshall, George Mason University and Jack Goldstone, George Mason University The resignation of the last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, in December 1991 launched an era of dra- matic change in world politics. The fifteen years since the end of the Cold War have seen a major increase in globalization, as technical revolutions in information and communications systems have made world politics far more transparent and increased the effects of changes in any one region on other parts of the world. They have also exposed a nascent global system peppered with fragile, failing, and failed states, and in which large areas have been ravaged by years of violence, contestation, and uneven development. The US National Security Strategy 2006 recognizes the complex mixture of oppor- tunities and challenges that characterize this unfolding dilemma in its tenth sec- tion, titled Engage the Opportunities and Confront the Challenges of Globaliza- tion.' Successfully managing and guid- ing the complex dynamics of the new era through international engagement, invest- ment, and assistance will require a global perspective on prevailing conditions and trends in the key dimensions of conflict, governance, and development. In recognition of the need for new glob- al perspectives on issues that affect rela- tions among our many sovereign states, several initiatives have been developed to help keep global and regional actors better apprised of shifting circumstances, situa- tions, and trajectories in global politics. The foundational models for regular glob- al reporting of key issues affecting states in the world can be found in the Stock- holm International Peace Research Insti- tute's SIPRI Yearbook of World Arma- ments and Disarmament, first published in 1969, and in the annual State of the World Atlas, developed by Michael Kidron, Ronald Segal, and Dan Smith and first published in 1981. The first attempt to track global perfor- mance trends from a global systems per- spective was the biennial Peace and Con- flict report series first issued by the Uni- versity of Maryland in early 2001, mod- eled on the Conflict Trends Internet-based report designed by the Center for Sys- temic Peace in 1999.2 More recently, global trends reporting has blossomed with the appearance in 2004 of the annual Alert series (escola de cultura de pau, Spain), in 2005 of the annual Human Security Report and Brief series (Human Security Centre, Canada), and in 2007 of the annual Global Trends report (Develop- ment and Peace Foundation, Germany).3 Parallel to these efforts to measure and track important global performance trends have been efforts to measure the capacity of states to perform in the key dimensions of conflict, governance, and economic and social development. Prominent among these efforts has been the Peace-Building Capacity index and Ledger developed for and reported in the Peace and Conflict series, the World Governance Indicators developed by the World Bank, and the Failed States Index developed by the Fund for Peace and reported in the journal Foreign Policy.4 This new Global Report on Conflict, Governance, and State Fragility is designed as a new contribution to satisfy the need to track key trends in the emerg- ing global system and gauge general sys- tem performance in an era of dynamic globalization. The report begins with a brief discussion of general system trends in conflict, governance, and development and then introduces a new, baseline mea- sure of state capabilities and prospects, the State Fragility Index. This Index is based on a matrix of indicators measuring state effectiveness and legitimacy in the key dimensions of security, governance, economics, and social development. The Fragility Index has been developed over the past several years with the support of the US Agency for International Develop- ment and is critically informed by the work of the US Political Instability Task Force, on which the authors have served as key members for many years.5 Global Trends and Systems Analysis Conventional analyses of security and governance factors have for too long relied almost exclusively on individual or dyadic (bilateral) analysis, that is, on the conditions relevant to a particular country or state or relative to the interactions of two states. Systems analysis was largely confined to the analysis of alliance struc- tures and treaty organizations. The Cold War was, at once, the penultimate exam- Foreign Policy Bulletin 3

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