Book
Fragility, Aid, and State-building

Understanding Diverse Trajectories

Fragile states pose major development and security challenges. Considerable international resources are therefore devoted to state-building and institutional strengthening in fragile states, with generally mixed results. This volume explores how unpacking the concept of fragility and studying its dimensions and forms can help to build policy-relevant understandings of how states become more resilient and the role of aid therein.

It highlights the particular challenges for donors in dealing with ‘chronically’ (as opposed to ‘temporarily’) fragile states and those with weak legitimacy, as well as how unpacking fragility can provide traction on how to take ‘local context’ into account.

Three chapters present new analysis from innovative initiatives to study fragility and fragile state transitions in cross-national perspective. Four chapters offer new focused analysis of selected countries, drawing on comparative methods and spotlighting the role of aid versus historical, institutional and other factors.

It has become a truism that one-size-fits-all policies do not work in development, whether in fragile or non-fragile states. This is should not be confused with a broader rejection of ‘off-the-rack’ policy models that can then be further adjusted in particular situations. Systematic thinking about varieties of fragility helps us to develop this range, drawing lessons – appropriately – from past experience.

Table of contents
  1. 1. Introduction: Varieties of fragility: implications for aid
    Rachel M. Gisselquist
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Varieties of fragility
  2. 2. Disaggregating state fragility: a method to establish a multidimensional empirical typology
    Jörn Grävingholt, Sebastian Ziaja, Merle Kreibaum
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Disaggregating state fragility
  3. 3. Conceptualising state collapse: an institutionalist approach
    Daniel Lambach, Eva Johais, Markus Bayer
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Conceptualising state collapse
  4. 4. Towards a theory of fragile state transitions: evidence from Yemen, Bangladesh and Laos
    David Carment, Joe Landry, Yiagadeesen Samy, Scott Shaw
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Towards a theory of fragile state transitions
  5. 5. Aid and state transition in Ghana and South Korea
    Jiyoung Kim
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Aid and state transition in Ghana and South Korea
    More Working Paper | Aid and State Transition in Ghana and South Korea
  6. 6. Aid and policy preferences in oil-rich countries: comparing Indonesia and Nigeria
    Ahmad Helmy Fuady
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Aid and policy preferences in oil-rich countries
    More Working Paper | Aid and Policy Preference in Oil-Rich Countries
  7. 7. Development assistance and the lasting legacies of rebellion in Burundi and Rwanda
    Devon E. A. Curtis
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Development assistance and the lasting legacies of rebellion in Burundi and Rwanda
  8. 8. Aid, accountability and institution building in Ethiopia: the self-limiting nature of technocratic aid
    Berhanu Abegaz
    More Journal Special Issue Article | Aid, accountability and institution building in Ethiopia
    More Working Paper | Aid, Accountability, and Institution-Building in Ethiopia
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