International support to peace and democracy in fragile states: What difference does context make?

Event Type
International Workshop

Location / Date
Bonn, 16.12.2014

German Development Institute/Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE)

It has almost become common knowledge that fragile states pose an immense challenge to international cooperation. Documents such as the OECD “Principles for Good International Engagement in Fragile States and Situations” and the “New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States” demonstrate that the international community has tried to tailor its approaches to these circumstances. But is it really enough to distinguish fragile and non-fragile states and adapt international engagement accordingly? In the 2014 Fragile States Index only 39 countries are categorised as stable, leaving 139 so called fragile states. Obviously the term encompasses a highly heterogeneous group of countries. International approaches based on this categorisation are likely to work in some but not all of them.

Since 2011, the German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) has received funding from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) for research on “Transformation and Development in Fragile States”. In a first research component, the project has broken down the blurry concept of “fragile states” by distinguishing different constellations of state fragility. Based on a quantitative analysis four different types of state fragility were identified, featuring particular weaknesses in either one or all of three key dimensions of statehood: legitimacy, capacity and authority.

In a second step, the research examined how effective donor support has been in helping to bring about peace and/or democracy in countries that face fragility challenges. For this purpose, the project analysed two country cases per fragility type in more detail. Each case study looks at how effective statebuilding and democracy support efforts were and explores if the fragility context made a difference.

This final workshop presented and discussed the results of DIE’s research on international support to peace and democracy in fragile states with academics and policymakers working on state fragility, conflict or democratisation.

Hinweis

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