Evaluating State Performance: A Critical View of State Failure and Fragility Indexes

Abstract

The article criticizes poor state performance (PSP) indexes, that is to say, cross-national data sets that mark or rank contemporary states according to their performance. In particular, I claim that current indexes provide very little genuine information about performance orderings. The criticism focuses on 'structural' PSP problems: those that cannot be circumvented, have no obvious solution, and generally stem from the very nature of the exercise. I suggest that there is a generalized failure to acknowledge, let alone solve, in all three stages of index building -conceptualization, codification/operationalization, aggregation -fundamental issues including defining, dealing with intrinsic ambiguity, and with lack of complete order in the informational domain (that is, the database).Cet article est une critique des indicateurs de mauvaise performance de l 0 É tat, c 0 est a`dire des ensembles de donne´es nationales transversales qui classent les É tats contemporains en fonction de leurs performances. En particulier, je soutiens que les indicateurs utilise´s actuellement fournissent tre`s peu de re´elles informations concernant les classifications des performances. Notre critique est centre´e sur les proble`mes )structurels* qui caracte´risent ces indicateurs: ceux qui sont ine´vitables, n 0 ont pas de solutions e´videntes, et re´sultent en ge´ne´ral de la nature meˆme de l 0 exercice. Je conside`re qu 0 on ne´glige ge´ne´ralement de reconnaıˆtre, et par conse´quent de re´soudre -lors des trois phases de construction des indicateurs (conceptualisation, codification/ope´rationalisation, et agre´gation) -certains proble`mes fondamentaux lie´s, notamment, a`l 0 ambiguı¨te´intrinse`que au domaine informationnel et au manque d 0 ordre qui caracte´rise ce dernier.

Between Control and Cooperation: Multi-Stakeholder Service Provision and the Legitimacy of State Institutions in Ethiopia’s Amhara National Regional State

“…Our findings therefore support recent studies questioning the definition and predominance of state performance in the debate about the relation between state/non-state cooperation mechanisms on basic service delivery and the legitimacy of state institutions, and advocate a more process-oriented perspective on the role of state institutions in development (Tyler, 2001;OECD, 2008;Sanín, 2010). This may be especially important in societies recovering from civil conflict and striving to reformulate a social contract and maintain a balance between control and cooperation.…”

Breaking the Negative Feedback Loop of Disaster, Conflict, and Fragility: Analyzing Development Aid by Japan and South Korea

“…This is due to the conditions of fragile and conflict-affected states, including extreme poverty, war, and the process of reconstruction to crises and disasters [6]. As such, these countries lack the capacities to carry out basic governance functions, leaving their citizens vulnerable to a range of shocks [7][8][9][10]. In other words, a state's level of fragility and violent conflict increases people's likelihood to be harmed by natural hazards because it limits their ability to cope with the impact.…”

A Global TrendEU‐style: Democracy Promotion in ‘Fragile’ and Conflict‐Affected South Caucasus

“…While these indexes provide choice (Grävingholt, Ziaja, and Kreibaum, ), most of them juggle with very broad concepts attempting to squeeze a complex notion of statehood into a simple scale (Ziaja and Mata, ). Often such practices can only overview the general situation of fragility in a country or even obscure information (Mata and Ziaja, ; Sanín, ).…”