Program on Fragile States

The Program on Fragile States at the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy is dedicated to research and education to promote cooperative and multilateral approaches to the pressing “twin” challenges and opportunities of development and peace that the 21st Century poses. Today there are some 40-60 fragile states in the international system, which are countries deeply vulnerable to recurring rounds of crisis and violence and that in turn see chronic poverty traps. The Program's mission is to understand the vicious cycles of decline and the virtuous cycles of progress in fragile states, and to educate and disseminate knowledge gained from empirical research.

A look ahead into the 21st Century foresees a world in which there are dramatic new challenges as well as unprecedented new opportunities to realize sustainable development and international peace and security. On the development front, serious challenges lie beyond the Millennium Development Goals as environmental degradation destroys much of the resources upon which poverty alleviation and development depends. Simply put, humanity cannot continue on the current path of environmental deterioration without at some point finding “sustainable” patterns and processes of environmental, economic and social development.

Equally, and related, serious challenges lie ahead in realizing international peace and security. The period of rapid reduction of armed conflict that occurred after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (as peacemaking outpaced the eruption of new wars) seems to have come to an end in the early 21st Century, and many countries today are deeply fragile and vulnerable to state failure and civil war. Moreover, there are new patterns of armed violence emerging in the contexts of criminal or gender-based violence, inter-communal clashes, as well as so-called “one-sided violence” when autocratic regimes turn weapons of war on their own populations.  

Consequently, there is deep appreciation for the complex connections among facets of development and of peace and security. Chronic poverty and socio-economic exclusion are seen to be powerful, underlying drivers of social conflict and violence, and when wars do occur societies often suffer “development in reverse.” This means of connection between development and peace portends a reinforcing, “vicious “cycle” in terms of the mutually reinforcing ways in which development and peace are inherently interrelated. Conversely, the absence of widespread violence seems to be a prerequisite for socio-economic development which in turn buttresses the consolidation of peace. This means that development and peace are equally related a reinforcing, “virtuous” cycle in which security provides the conditions for development, and in turn the “peace dividend” facilitates gains in development, particularly for the most vulnerable in society such as women, or formerly excluded minorities.

The Program on Fragile States focuses directly on the intersections between sustainable development and the post-Cold War evolution of the international community’s capacities to ameliorate the mostly internal armed conflicts and societal violence that are at the top of the international peace and security agenda today. 

The Program:

  • Conducts sponsored research on themes of development and conflict, multilateral and especially United Nations approaches to conflict prevention, management and peacebuilding; and themes of democracy and governance that link the development and peace agendas;

  • Provides cutting-edge, policy relevant research findings to policy makers and specialists in the international community with a particular emphasis on relationships with the United Nations;

  • Delivers education and training on development and global health, the global environment and sustainability, and on the international system of responding to civil wars and violent intrastate conflicts; and

  • Engages in public outreach on themes that are at the intersection of development and peace to broaden public awareness on the ways in which the contemporary global issues of advancements in education, health, and livelihoods are deeply interconnected with the common global concerns such as violence and conflict that necessarily require international cooperation.

Specific focus areas are these:

  • Scarcity, conflict and governance. This concentration focuses on critical environmental issues: 1) energy scarcity and the effects of great-power rivalry in this area on oil-exporting states such as Sudan, Nigeria, Iran, and Iraq; 2) water scarcity and quality, which together with the related competition for land are pressing global concerns; and 3) global health and migration issues, and in particular the relationship between armed conflict and the international migration regime. 

  • The United Nations in Fragile States. This concentration explores the underlying causes of threats to international peace and security that lie in state weaknesses and social stress, the dynamics of state weakness (such as mobilization, crises, and pathways of state failure), and evaluates international efforts to build more effective, democratic states in the wake of civil wars. Within this concentration, the Program offers a specialization in the prevention, management, and settlement of civil wars and current efforts to improve international peacebuilding operations at the United Nations and particularly new mechanisms for engagement such as the work of United Nations Peace and Development Advisors.

  • Social Cohesion Assessment and Programming. Increasingly, donor agencies, the international financial institutions, and international organizations have adopted comprehensive assessment approaches to social cohesion and post-conflict governance in both development assistance and in the context of promoting peace. The Program concentration on social cohesion has a core focus on governance with a view toward enhancing models and methods of social cohesion analysis as well as review and evaluation of development-program strategies to build peace through social-cohesion programming.

The Program on Fragile States at the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security and Diplomacy is dedicated to research and education to promote cooperative and multilateral approaches to the pressing “twin” challenges and opportunities of development and peace that the 21st Century poses.