Failing States
The question of how to identify failing states at an early point in time is not only an important one, but an old one as well. Several indices, often involving a lot of categories and even more indicators, were designed for this purpose. Soon, these indices became subject to criticism: they were deemed too complex, offering too few insights for the tremendous amount of work going into them. And finally, even well-coordinated interventions across all categories to prevent states from failing have proven futile in too many cases, as happened recently in Afghanistan. This paper pursues the question whether there is sufficient plausibility and reason to allow for a reduction of this complexity by looking at just one indicator – youth unemployment. This paper intends to kick off further research using methods like regression analysis.
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