the annual failed state index--which ranks countries in order of their failed statedness--always strikes me as a funny idea. you either fail at something, or you don't, either a country works, or it doesn't.
i suppose there are degrees of failure, but my sense of the term "failed state" was more of an all or nothing thing. there are states that have failed and others that have not. but maybe that's the problem. any country is going to be a lot more complicated that the either/or of pass and fail.
and in looking over the rankings i realize that my conception of what constitutes a "failed state" is a little different from the folks at foreign affairs. a "failed state", in my mind, is essentially the absence of a state. it's the lack of any functioning government from all or a portion of the country's territory. the only way a "degrees of failure" makes sense is if it refers to what portion of a country's territory is outside the state's control.
so back to foreign affair's rankings: while i agree that the top three states, sudan, iraq and somalia, have all failed, i would probably put them in reverse order. somalia has a greater proportion of lawless areas1 than iraq, and iraq is more out of control than than sudan.
i also think it's weird to count north korea as a "failed state." north korea's problem isn't the absence of a functioning government, but rather exactly the opposite. the NK government controls all of its territory. misgovernance is a different problem then being a failed state. as i go down the list i see quite a few other states that i don't think really belong.
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1- somalia gets even more complicated because of the existence of somaliland and puntland. if we count them as successes (i.e. not failed areas) then possibly that would make somalia as a whole as less failed than both sudan and iraq.
