The Fragile States Index (FSI) is an annual ranking of 178 countries based on the different pressures they face that impact their levels of fragility. The Index is based on The Fund for Peace’s proprietary Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST) analytical approach. Based on comprehensive social science methodology, three primary streams of data — quantitative, qualitative, and expert validation — are triangulated and subjected to critical review to obtain final scores for the FSI. Millions of documents are analyzed every year, and by applying highly specialized search parameters, scores are apportioned for every country based on twelve key political, social and economic indicators and over 100 sub-indicators that are the result of years of expert social science research.
The 2017 FSI, the 13th edition of the annual Index, comprises data collected between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016 — thus, certain well-publicized events that have occurred since January 1, 2017 are not covered by the 2017 Index. The FSI scores should be interpreted with the understanding that the lower the score, the better. Therefore, a reduced score indicates an improvement and greater relative stability, just as a higher score indicates greater instability. For an explanation of the various indicators and their icons, please refer to page 27. FFP attempts as much as possible to de-emphasize rankings, as it is our firm belief that a country’s overall score (and indeed, its indicator scores) are a far more important and accurate barometer of a country’s performance, and that as much as countries should be compared against other countries, it is more useful to compare a country against itself, over time. Hence, our analysis focuses more on specific indicator scores or trend lines over time rather than just rankings. Ultimately, the FSI is an entry point into deeper interpretive analysis by civil society, government, businesses and practitioners alike — to understand more about a state's capacities and pressures which contribute to levels of fragility and resilience.