Talk:List of countries by Fragile States Index

Stable instead of moderate
I noticed today that Fund for Peace, the NGO which provide the classification, is calling the category between 30 and 60 "stable" instead of "moderate" since 2011. So I changed the words accordingly. Gingitsune (talk) 03:22, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

12 factors lists 13
There are 13 factors under the list of "12 factors" that are used to determine failed status. Can anyone correct this? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.87.224.65 (talk) 16:31, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

flags
Why do some entries have flags but no country name? Ddddan 19:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * There seems to be bug. I switched to a new template. Now it is working. --Spitzl 10:59, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Nepal
How come Nepal are both 21st and 28th in the list? Is their FSI 93.6 or 92.4? Phatmann 22:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I corrected the mistake. Feel free to change wrong data.--Spitzl 20:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I would have done it myself but was unsure which was the correct data. Phatmann 20:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Definition
sould there not be somekind of definition on what sustainable means, currently it only states what the problems of the non-sustainable nations are.

--SelfQ (talk) 15:18, 22 February 2008 (UTC)


 * "the index has been published annually by the United States". That's pretty self explanatory...99.236.221.124 (talk) 03:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Unless the text has changed since you wrote that, you have misread it in a way that is an alarming illustration of how this article is liable to mislead people. And if it actually said that on 4 Feb, that is even worse. What does "published annually by the United States" mean. The United States Government? It does not specify as much. In any case, which department, and for what purpose? This article is a political statement produced by a pressure group for its own unstated ends. It is appalling that it is being left open for users to misinterpret it as a statement of fact produced in line with Wikipedia's policies, when it is no such thing. Alex Middleton (talk) 20:07, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Update
The article currently shows the 2007 data. The 2008 data are available, and the appropriate URL is given in the references section. Anyone know of a simple way of converting to WP's table format?

Ordinary Person (talk) 02:25, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I've updated the list to 2008's chart. UOSSReiska (talk) 19:09, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
 * According to the map, they seem to have created a 5th category, so that the scale goes Critical-In Danger-Borderline-Stable-Most Stable. From such, the divisions would be: Somalia to Sri Lanka, Yemen to Laos, Equitorial Guinea to the Bahamas, with Stable and Most Stable the same as the current Moderate and Sustainable.  Should the divisions be changed to reflect that?  68.193.76.53 (talk) 20:40, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

New Discussion
A discussion has been started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Countries/Lists of countries which could affect the inclusion criteria and title of this and other lists of countries. Editors are invited to participate. Pfainuk talk 12:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Good changed to "moderate"
Officially, it's actually meant to be "moderate", not "good" as the column header. The Failed State Index uses the term "moderate". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.190.156 (talk) 20:00, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

Israel/Palestine
'Israel/Palestine' is listed both at #2 and #58. Could this please be clarified? --GenericBob (talk) 05:37, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Colorful Taiwan?
If Taiwan is not included, shouldn't it be left white (instead of orange)? Rolf-Peter Wille (talk) 16:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Updated list
Fund for peace released a figures for the 2009.

Fund for Peace 2009 figures

I'm going to update this page soon. Elockid (talk) 23:06, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Data from before 2008
Any reason why there is only the data for this year and last? As it says that this series started in 2005 81.105.151.4 (talk) 17:40, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Brazil
Brazil should be yellow.Guinsberg (talk) 06:23, 18 August 2010 (UTC)


 * it seems someone messed the order and numbers of Brazil on purpose, to make it #1 of Latin America. Well, at the current pace, Brazil should make to yellow within five years, but in the meanwhile, I'll stick to fund for peace's numbers.

http://www.fundforpeace.org/web/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=452&Itemid=900 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gingitsune (talk • contribs) 20:11, 21 August 2010 (UTC)


 * As 2018, Brazil should be more or less on Iraq position. I read carefully the criteria of a failed state and currently Brazil meets all of them. 200.189.118.162 (talk) 12:20, 25 April 2018 (UTC)

My reading shows Brazil as the fourth most dysfunctional nation in South America, the real bad boys are Venezuela, Colombia and Bolivia. AndrewHart500 (talk) 21:36, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Why no criticism of the concept?
Any system of rankings which claims Iceland---with almost no resources, a devastated financial system and huge foreign debt---to be sustainable, while countries like Germany, the US and France are "moderate" as far as being "failed states" clearly has huge gasping holes in the logic of its ranking system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.202.141.132 (talk) 03:05, 31 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree. This article should be deleted. It is just one organisation's interpretation of world affairs based on who knows what underlying motives, but recording it here as a statement of fact gives it an air of authority that can easily be misconstrued. It seems to me to be inherently absurd to list all the countries of the world in an index with such an alarmist name. I have tagged the article for lack of neutrality. I don't see how it can possibly be neutral, when it is simply a duplicate of an interpretation by an organisation that does not use Wikipedia's neutrality standards. If anyone else wants to nominate this for deletion, please go ahead, but I am not a wikipolitician, so I don't want the stress of getting involved in that sort of thing. Alex Middleton (talk) 20:01, 3 September 2010 (UTC)
 * This article is based off a well-known publication by a reputable source. The list is probably the best one out there, and its quality as a wikipedia page is good. This article is just a reflection of the Failed States Index, which is shown in the title, List of countries by Failed States Index. If you feel the Failed States Index is just an opinion and not reliable, please address that in the introduction. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 03:08, 4 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I see their point in this. Wildly claiming that this is accurate when all it is is a list of opinions (sustainable, moderately failed state). The index does not provide all the statistics, merely colors. I think that if were aren't going to delete this page, we should perhaps say something of its vagueness. He's right, even reputable sources make no claim at making a neutral statement. 72.199.100.223 (talk) 06:28, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe so, but it is what it is. It's just a wikipedia page about the "Failed States Index". Just like theres a wikipedia page for ISO 3166-1, and for UN member states. They are what they are, and are notable enough to have a wikipedia page. No doubt if some sourced criticisms are found they can be integrated into the article somewhere, but that is no reason the article itself shouldn't exist. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:40, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Just because Wikipedia provides a list of countries according to the Failed States Index does not mean that Wikipedia endorses the view of said index. We're merely reporting what the index says, and what the index says is not in dispute. Now, whether the index is accurate is another question, and if there's reason to doubt its accuracy then we should add some information about that, maybe a "criticism" section, etc.. But whether the index is accurate or not, this article is providing verifiable information about the index, and in a neutral manner. I'm removing the neutrality tag. Sonicsuns (talk) 15:53, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Alternative classification system
While both Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace use the same data, they categorize countries based on that data differently. Wikipedia currently uses images based on Fund for Peace's four category system: Sustainable, moderate, warning and alert. Foreign Policy uses a five category system: Most stable, stable, borderline, in danger and critical. I believe we should use Foreign policy's categorization system rather than Fund for Peace's -- it includes another category and the terms used are arguably better (FfP's terms are somewhat vague in meaning).

The correlation between the two systems is roughly this: "sustainable" is "most stable"; "moderate" countries are "most stable" and "stable"; "warning" is "borderline" and "in danger"; "alert" is "in danger" and "critical". For further clarification, a higher ranked "moderate" may be "most stable" (France, UK), while a lower ranked "moderate" may be "stable" (Spain, Italy). A higher ranked "warning" may be "borderline" (Brazil, Russia, India) while a lower ranked "borderline" may be "in danger" (Columbia, China). It simply breaks down the results more while using clearer termed categories: it's more informative and more simple. By doing this we will separate countries that are listed together because of oversimple categories, like Iran and Somalia, France and Oman, South Africa and Mozambique, etc.

I'll change it, but I want to know if anyone's opposed to this and why?  Swarm   X 07:43, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't understand how Foreign policy in publish the Fund's data changes the levels, but go ahead and fix it. Just clarify the information in the lede when you do. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 08:01, 27 November 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd agree with the assessment that the Foreign Policy terms are more accurate, or rather less confusing, as the current differentiation between sustainable and moderate seems rather large for only minor differences. Germany is about as likely as Australia to become a failed state, yet they are in different groups. Your rowboat overlord (talk) 15:21, 4 April 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't get where Foreign Policy's classification's cutoff lines lies. For the four categories of Fund for Peace, it's easy, you have the 0 to 30 group (aka sustenable), the 30.1 to 60 group (aka moderate), the 60.1 to 90 group (aka warning) and the 90.1 to 120 group (aka alert). For the 2011 Foreign Policy's classification, there seems to be a cut between Pakistan (12th/102.3) and Yemen (13th/100.3), another one between Guatemala (73rd/80.1) and Benin (74th/80.0), one between Saudi Arabia (138th/50.4) and Qatar (139th/49.5) and the last one between Iceland (165th/30.1) and Netherland (166th/28.3). So the cutoff could be at 30.0, 50.0, 80.0, 101.0, but they seems too arbitrary, some categories cover a range of 30 points, other 20. Maybe we should start a third classification, the Wikipedia one. I did some test and the best results was with six categories and cutoff at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100.


 * I would say: leave it as it is. The cutoffs at 30, 60 and 90 are quite transparent and easy to understand. Another option that i could get behind would be cutoff at 20, 40, 60, 80 and 100, as the user above suggested. But effectively it would lead to 5 categories, because only one country is currently below 20, finland with 19,7. So going from 30/60/90 to (20)/40/60/80/100 would mainly effect the region from 60-120, and increase the resolution there. And (unless we give Finland its very own special top-category) Japan, Germany, USA, UK, France, South Korea would join the current 20-30 top category. 178.7.227.118 (talk) 21:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Nigeria's entry
Nigeria's position has not changed from the last year. Or has it? The table has it on #14 with a blue dash that indicates it was #14 last year. But then there is (1) after the dash. What could that mean? Nigeria did not move for 1 position? 82.141.125.149 (talk) 01:40, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I believe it was a typo. Changed accordingly. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 06:57, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Pakistan's entry
What about Pakistan's position. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.209.70 (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

wheres tonga?
ive looked through the article twice and i cant seem to find the koingdom of tonga. is there a reason its not there?(70.113.222.244 (talk) 03:42, 12 July 2011 (UTC))


 * Tonga is not on the list for some reason. Chipmunkdavis (talk) 09:37, 12 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In the failed states index report, they say some countries don't have enough data to fill evaluation chart. Tonga must be one of them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gingitsune (talk • contribs) 22:48, 17 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Population 103000, i guess thats the reason. West sahara and Gaza are not in and have higher populations. I guess they started out with the list of united nations member states, and then cut off somewhere between a population size of 200000 and 500000. Other tiny UN member states are also missing, like San Marino, Monaco, but with just above 500000 Luxemburg is in the list. Above that population size, the list appears to match the United Nations member states. 178.7.227.118 (talk) 21:38, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

Reasons for changes in the FSI
Does the United States think-tank Fund For Peace publish the reasons for specific changes? I would especially be interested in the changes in Germany from 2010 to 2011. --MartinThoma (talk) 14:00, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

What is the definition of Sustainable in this metric?
What is the definition of Sustainable in this metric? 97.87.29.188 (talk) 21:53, 12 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The trivial answer would be: If it has a score between 0 and 30, the country is sustainable. The boundaries between the 4 categories are at 30, 60 and 90. Sustainable is just a fitting label for the top category because of the way the criteria are defined. 178.7.227.118 (talk) 21:05, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Not sure it's that "fitting" -- that bracket has Ireland in it. :/ But it does match the thesis of the ranking, that they're alleged to be the opposite of the "failed"...  84.203.34.110 (talk) 22:41, 28 June 2012 (UTC)
 * Whatever that means...what does "Sustainable" mean, vs "Alert" or any of the other items? There is no listing of a definition, or why #'s 1-10 fit group A, or anyone fits any of the other categories. Where is the definition?? Certainly not here, and it should be, if we're going to use these names/categories. Otherwise, it should be listed in a more NPOV "Group A", "Group B", etc...Hires an editor (talk) 12:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Japan's recent move
So I get to read that Norway is still at the right end of the statistics, but barely holding on to the top 5 ranking. Syria has halved it's distance to the wrong end of it. No surprise there. But how did Japan drop by 13 spaces? It can't have all to do with a nuclear reactor? --82.134.28.194 (talk) 06:55, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

You get it right, the drop is due to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster of march 2011. People who compiled the data were astonished the castastroph give such an impact on a developped country, but it did. Gingitsune (talk) 23:52, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

165 to 171?
Is this where Canada and Australia are supposed to have an honourable mentioning, but still not getting it? --82.134.28.194 (talk) 07:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

two-col layout for tables
Could I ask about the reasoning behind using a two-column layout for a table? I've never seen that before, especially not on a web page through which one expects to scroll. I found it confusing when I came to the page looking for a particular country, and only "got" the layout once I found the country. It seems counterintuitive for a table based on a specific kind of ranking. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:35, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

One column could be a good way to add room for the data from earlier years, I'll give it a try. Gingitsune (talk) 23:48, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Recovery of the original Failed States Map 2012
The original image was replaced by another pic from the user "U5K0" because of a "dead link". The new one isn't compatible to the other exisiting maps from 2005-2011. The dead-source can be found here: Failed State Index by FundForPeace.org.

Please recover the "old" picture from user "Quintucket", which is only with four colors; to prevent future misapprehensions. the old one can be found here: Original / archived Failed State Map 2012

2014
New report: http://ffp.statesindex.org/ --141.70.80.5 (talk) 23:09, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

The USA is a failed state
Actually the USA is a failed state because political influential religious fundamentalism, ethnic and racial conflicts, epidemic obesity, educaional poverity and educaion expiration, ludicrously misuse of weapons, serious social inequality and high indebtedness. The USA isnt even a democracy its plutocratic Oligarchy.--95.113.227.247 (talk) 19:08, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

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Error in "Very Stable" table markup
There seems to be an error in the "Very Stable" table, the last columns. I'm not proficient enough in table markup to fix this. KaldeFakta68 (talk) 09:09, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Why is Israel paired with the West Bank?
There is enough standalone data for Israel and the West Bank. I dug into this, and in the economy section, for example, in 2012 Israel relied heavily on only 10 companies for its exports, however, this has changed, and to me, it seems like since the West Bank is paired with Israel it is dragging it down big time. The same goes for the West Bank, it seems as if Israel is dragging it up the scale. I understand this isn't something any individual has done, but rather the think tank, so there isn't much you can do (unless they also rank both separately)- so take this as my criticism for this index, I guess. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Impossiblegend (talk • contribs) 07:34, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Errors in index?
I used the official website to verify the year-on-year changes in the table, first with Australia and then with New Zealand. As far as I can tell, the data in the table is completely different to that on the website, at least for prior years. Years where there's an improvement (a decrease in the score) show the opposite, and by different degrees to those on the official website. Can anyone verify whether this is the case or not? Thanks, thorpewilliam (talk) 06:12, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

Botswana
Botswana's strength 41.138.78.22 (talk) 03:03, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Classifications
Some countries (like Namibia) on the map are wrong. Also, why are the categories different on the index? (they use stable, more stable, and very stable, not less/base/more) And why isn't sustainable blue? DarkMatterRealm2 (talk) 13:17, 23 February 2024 (UTC)