Introduction

Fragile states expose their societies to the risk of meltdown or collapse, endangering the lives of their citizens and leaving them unable to sustain ordinary life. State fragility can also threaten global security by providing safe havens for terrorist groups and for drug and human traffickers, and by increasing the threat of disease pandemics and mass migrations. Since the end of the Cold War in the 1990s, failed and fragile states have emerged as a major area of concern for the great powers, international institutions and scholars. Foreign policy analysts introduced the concept of failed state in the context of the post-cold war era, when some scholars attempted to describe civil conflict, posing a danger of fragmentation of state institutions, economic meltdown and deterioration of security. Policy development on state fragility coincided with a similar shift in academic work. State fragility is a multidimensional phenomenon.