This timely Handbook examines the causes, costs and consequences of state fragility, advancing key debates in the field. Demonstrating the multidimensionality of fragility by applying diverse theories and methodologies, it provides new insights on effective policy development and application in the context of fragile states.

Contents: 1 Introduction to the Handbook of Fragile States 1 David Carment and Yiagadeesen Samy 2 Investigating the root causes of fragility 19 Sonja Grimm 3 Transforming conception(s) of state fragility and new containment interventions 39 Nicolas Lemay-Hébert and Babatunde F. Obamamoye 4 Current conceptualizations and measurements of state fragility: recent developments and remaining limits 53 Ines A. Ferreira 5 The United States is vulnerable: a flashing red light in the Fragile States Index 73 Nate Haken and Natalie Fiertz 6 The case for measuring multidimensional fragility: is disaggregation the answer? 88 Harsh Desai (OECD) and Jonathan Marley (OECD) 7 Strategic approaches in fragile societies: targeting drivers 104 Seth D. Kaplan 8 Hybrid authority systems and political instability 121 Monty G. Marshall 9 Hybrid political orders in fragile contexts 137 Tobias Debiel and Stephan Dombrowski 10 Implications of fragility for growth, poverty and inequality 152 Karla Cisneros Rosado and Yiagadeesen Samy 11 Just “add women and stir”? Bringing gender into fragility debates 170 Diana Koester 12 The relationship between state fragility and refugees 192 Charles Martin-Shields 13 Climate change and fragility: improving early warning and climate-proofing development and conflict interventions 206 Erin Sikorsky, Francesco Femia and Brigitte Hugh 14 Urban fragility 222 Robert Muggah 15 Understanding horizontal inequalities: the case of Palestinian refugees in Jordan 236 Zina Nimeh 16 The African fragility problem 252 Robert I. Rotberg 17 State fragility and sustainable development in the Middle East and North Africa 265 Hamid E. Ali, Mahmoud Elmakkawe and Nesreen Nasser Alanbar 18 State fragility trap and conflict in Afghanistan (2001–2021) 285 Said Yaqub Ibrahimi 19 Fragility of small island developing states 299 Michaël Goujon and Laurent Wagner 20 Securitization, divergent agendas and the sectoral allocation of development aid within Afghanistan 316 Mark McGillivray and Safiullah Taye 21 Exiting the fragility trap: evidence from Bangladesh 334 David Carment and Emilia Vydelingum 22 “Nothing about us without us”: the g7+ and the New Deal 355 Habib ur Rehman Mayar, Helder da Costa and Felix Piedad 23 The EU’s approach to fragile states: conflicting norms, practices, and lessons learnt 369 Julian Bergmann and Mark Furness 24 Coordinating aid in fragile states: the promise of country platforms and principles for effective aid architecture 385 Rachael Calleja and Sarah Rose Index

‘The Handbook of Fragile States brings together an impressive breadth and diversity of expertise – empirical and theoretical, academic and policy-oriented. It demonstrates that our understanding of state fragility, its sources and the ways to overcome it, has made tremendous progress in recent years – a knowledge badly needed in a world where multiple global crises put nations increasingly under stress. In their entirety, the twenty-four chapters of this volume make a convincing case for the notion that the legitimacy of the rulers, as much as their capacity to provide for their citizens, is a crucial resource for states to escape, or avoid, the perils of fragility.’