For the third year in a row, Foreign Policy magazine (published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) has published its Failed States Index.
An interactive interface to all three Failed State Indexes and details about the methodology of the survey can be found at the Fund for Peace web site.
Read Foreign Policy magazine, in print or electronically, via the library’s subscriptions (you’ll want the July/August 2005, May/June of 2006, and July/August of 2007 issues).
Good for: political, economic, military and social indicators of instability
Variables: demographic pressures, refugees and displaced persons, group grievance, human flight, urban development, economy, delegitimization of state, public services, human rights, security apparatus, factionalized elites, external intervention
Time span: 2004 to 2006 and (presumably annually hereafter)
Documentation: Read about the methodology, CAST , the Fund for Peace’s Conflict Assessment System Tool.