W
hen troops opened fire in the
streets of Mogadishu in early May, it was a tragically familiar scene
in war-torn Somalia. Except on this day, soldiers weren’t fighting
Islamist militias or warlords. They were combating a mob of tens of
thousands rioting over soaring food prices.
On top of the country’s already colossal challenges, a food crisis
seems an especially cruel turn for a place like Somalia. But it is a
test that dozens of weak states are being forced to confront this year,
with escalating prices threatening to undo years of poverty-alleviation
and development efforts. The unrest in Mogadishu echoes food riots that
have erupted on nearly every continent in the past year. Tens of
thousands of Mexicans protested when the price of corn flour jumped 400
percent in early 2007. Thousands of Russian pensioners took to the
streets in November to call for a return to price controls on milk and
bread. In Egypt, the army was ordered to bake more loaves at
military-run bakeries after riots broke out across the country. Kabul,
Port-au-Prince, and Jakarta experienced angry protests over spikes in
the price of staples.
But if few foretold the hunger and hardship that have followed the
uptick in prices, the events of 2007 revealed that unexpected shocks
can play a decisive role in the stability of an increasing number of
vulnerable states. Primary among last year’s shocks was the implosion
of the U.S. subprime market, which burst housing bubbles worldwide,
slowed trade, and sent currencies into tailspins. A contested election
in Kenya in December swiftly shredded any semblance of ethnic peace in
a country that many had considered an African success story. And though
Benazir Bhutto feared her own assassination upon returning to Pakistan,
her murder reverberated in a country already contending with the
challenges of ambitious mullahs, suicide bombers, and an all-powerful
military.
These shocks are the sparks of state failure, events that further
corrode the integrity of weak states and push those on the edge closer
to combustion. As the food crisis has shown, these political and
economic setbacks are not unique to the world’s most vulnerable
countries. But weak states are weak precisely because they lack the
resiliency to cope with unwelcome—and unpleasant—surprises. When a
global economic downturn pinches the main export base, an election goes
awry, or a natural disaster wipes out villages, the cracks of
vulnerability open wider.
Because it is crucial to closely monitor weak states—their
progress, their deterioration, and their ability to withstand
challenges—the Fund for Peace, an independent research organization,
and FOREIGN POLICY present the fourth annual Failed States Index. Using
12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, we ranked 177
states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict and
societal deterioration. To do so, we examined more than 30,000 publicly
available sources, collected from May to December 2007, to form the
basis of the index’s scores. The 60 most vulnerable states are listed
in the rankings, and the full results are available at
ForeignPolicy.com
and
fundforpeace.org
.