The European Union’s ambiguous concept of ‘state fragility’

Grimm, Sven

doi:10.1080/01436597.2014.878130

Cited by 17 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The literature on the EU's conception of state fragility and its corresponding actions is scarce (Hout, ; Grimm, ). Yet, based on extensive document analysis and interviews, Grimm (, p. 253) has argued that despite internal discussions, ‘the EU has not (yet) decided on a clear‐cut definition of “state fragility”’. The discussion on fragile states, though without clearly referring to them (Grimm, ), started with the European Commission's observation that weak state institutions are likely to exacerbate structural crises, while weak statehood may lead to weak governance (European Commission, ).…”

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, based on extensive document analysis and interviews, Grimm (, p. 253) has argued that despite internal discussions, ‘the EU has not (yet) decided on a clear‐cut definition of “state fragility”’. The discussion on fragile states, though without clearly referring to them (Grimm, ), started with the European Commission's observation that weak state institutions are likely to exacerbate structural crises, while weak statehood may lead to weak governance (European Commission, ). The European Council looked into the causes of fragility by pinpointing civil conflict, availability of weapons and bad governance (Council of the EU, ).…”

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The EU's complex institutional structure and occasional institutional competition (Fiott, ) has undermined the efficiency and often the effectiveness of the EU's policies. This internal incoherence creates external incoherence, impeding the EU from developing policy actions in response to international developments or others' actions (Grimm, , p. 262). Moreover, since ‘labelling a state as weak or failed’ may be politically sensitive (Cahill, , p. 10), the EU prefers to refrain from such terminology when dealing with partner countries, even if it did endorse the ‘New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States’ (International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding, ) and other OECD () documents pertaining to the development of fragile states.…”

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Babayan

2016

Global Policy

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This article examines the EU's democracy promotion in ‘fragile’ and conflict‐affected states. The article discusses the EU's perception of state fragility, contrasts it to the evolving understanding of the concept in the literature, and discusses its actions in the conflict‐affected states of the South Caucasus: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The analysis demonstrates that while the EU has adjusted its democracy promotion policies following critical international junctures, it has not specifically addressed the perceived fragility or conflicts of states where it promotes democracy. While the EU's democracy promotion profile in the South Caucasus countries has become more visible, its involvement in the resolution of regional conflicts has remained marginal. Yet, by not following the trend of accentuating fragility, the EU may have proven itself as a more nuanced democracy promoter, attempting to take into consideration local perceptions and realities.

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Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Eu's Take On State Fragility and Democracy Promotionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

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

Babayan

2016

Global Policy

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“…Religion is a notable part of the cultural impact, especially when religion and politics are combined. Religions in the Middle East have a serious problem in ideological identity, interest and security, which has always been regarded as factors that lead to security issues and even warfare [7]. When geographical and cultural factors are taken into consideration, the observation method of national fragility becomes more complicated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fragile States Metric System: An Assessment Model Considering Climate Change

Liu

Zhou

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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As a measure of the sustainability of a country, a state's fragility is attributed to numerous elements. Meanwhile, climate change is a potential global threat in the 21st century, which may further aggravate the fragility of countries. Concerning this issue, we propose an index system, the Fragile States Metric System (FSMS) to measure state fragility, which includes five dimensions: climate change, cohesion, economy, politics and society. Our FSMS consists of the Climate Change Metric System (CCMS) and Modified Conflict Assessment System (M-CAS). While establishing the model, we introduce a new hybrid evaluation method, Gray Relational Analysis (GRA)-Entropy method and variable weight function model, to calculate the weights. As the result, from 2007 to 2017, European countries, in particular Finland, Norway, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark, remained the top 5 most stable countries. Robustness analysis proves that FSMS is a relatively stable model. In addition, in the application of FSMS, we introduce the economic theory, Pareto Optimum, to measure intervention costs while mitigating state fragility.

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State Fragility and Human Development

Seyoum

2024

Palgrave Studies in Democracy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship for Growth

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The European Union’s ambiguous concept of ‘state fragility’

Cited by 17 publications

References 27 publications

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

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

Fragile States Metric System: An Assessment Model Considering Climate Change

State Fragility and Human Development

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