Global Report Series

Global Report 2017: Conflict, Governance and State Fragility

Monty G. Marshall and Gabrielle Elzinga-Marshall

Color, 52 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables

Publisher: Center for Systemic Peace, 2017 (forthcoming)

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here.

 

Global Report 2017 is the fourth edition in the annual CSP Global Report series on global system performance and fragility in the Globalization Era. This Global Report continues to monitor the key trends in armed conflict, governance and societal-system development. The global trends are updated to 2016 and the Report provides a table listing the 2016 State Fragility Index and Matrix covering 167 countries comprising the global system. The Report's feature sections focus on then threats to complex societal-systems, "The Age of Complexity and the Shadows of the Past" and the conflict storm engulfing the MENA region,"Regional Eco-System Failure in the Middle East and North Africa: Re-thinking the "Resource Curse" and the "Global War on Terrrorism."

 

The report argues that our vestigous "culture of violence," that developed during the Age of Ignorance and came to define the Age of Anarchy, has to cast a long shadow with the power to destroy humanity in the Age of Complexity. The emirical analysis of current global trends raises a clear warning that the global system faces an existential threat from the confluence of our historical legacies: environmental degradation and political violence. Global system failures in conflict management and societal integration are concentrating their effects in the Middle East and North Africa region and creating the dangerous illusion of a "civilizational confrontation" with Islamic culture that is bringing the world ever closer to a second regional system collapse and the potential for a global system catastrophe. To place this warning in perspective, recall that the first regional system collapse devastated the European region, spreading through the colonial world system to East Asia, during the 20th century).

 

Global Report 2014: Conflict, Governance and State Fragility

Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole

Color, 60 pages, 14 figures, 3 tables

Publisher: Center for Systemic Peace, 2014

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here.

 

Global Report 2014 is the third edition in the annual Global Report series on global system performance and fragility in the Globalization Era. This Global Report continues to monitor the key trends in armed conflict, governance and societal-system development. The global trends are updated to 2013 and the Report provides a table listing the 2013 State Fragility Index and Matrix covering 167 countries comprising the global system. The Report features a discussion of "Emotive Content and Distorted Priorities in Protracted Conflict Regions" and a Societal-Systems Analytics theoretical process model of governance and state failure.

 

The analysis emphasizes that the world is at a critical juncture in global armed conflict and governance trends while showing that the net reduction in state fragility (the peace dividend) is continuing at a slowing pace. The report focuses attention on increasing tension (emotive content) and violence (distorted priorities) in the Arab League countries and the worsening humanitarian crises engulfing the East Central Africa "global ghetto."  The Report also highlights the problem of polar factionalism as both the gateway to political crisis and the focal point for conflict management, prevention, and protection efforts in complex societal-systems.

Global Report 2011: Conflict, Governance and State Fragility

Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole

Color, 44 pages, 12 figures, 1 table

Publisher: Center for Systemic Peace, 2011

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here or on the cover icon.

 

Global Report 2011 is the second edition in the annual Global Report series on global system performance and fragility in the Globalization Era. This Global Report continues to monitor the key trends in armed conflict, governance and societal-system development. The global trends are updated to 2011 and the Report provides a table listing the 2010 State Fragility Index and Matrix covering 164 (macro) countries comprising the global system.

 

The analysis highlights a 20% reduction in state fragility at the global level since 1995 and discusses regional trends. It includes maps showing the global distribution of armed conflicts, regimes and state fragility and discusses the relationship between state fragility, democratization and system complexity in the context of regional systemic cascades in the global system during the emerging Era of Globalization. Special attention is drawn to unfolding cascade effects in the Arab League countries.

Global Report 2009: Conflict, Governance and State Fragility

Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole

Color, 40 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

Publisher: Center for Systemic Peace and Center for Global Policy, George Mason University, 2009

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here or on the cover icon.

Executive Summary

Color, 8 pages, 4 figures. Click here.

 

Global Report 2009 is the first edition in the Center for Systemic Peace's annual Global Report series. This edition is published jointly by the Center for Systemic Peace and the George Mason University Center for Global Policy. Support for this publication was provided by the One Earth Future Foundation. The global trends in this Report are updated through 2008; it also provides a table listing the 2008 State Fragility Index and Matrix covering 162 (macro) countries comprising the global system.

Global Report on Conflict, Governance and State Fragility, 2008

Monty G. Marshall and Benjamin R. Cole

Black and white, 19 pages, 8 figures, 1 table

Publisher: Foreign Policy Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, 2008

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here or on the cover icon.

 

The 2008 Global Report is the second edition in the George Mason University Center for Global Policy's annual report series on global system performance and fragility  in the Globalization Era. The Global Report continues to monitor the key trends in armed conflict, high casualty terrorist bombings and regime governance formally featured in the Peace and Conflict series (featured in CSP's virtual library). The global trends are updated through 2007. The 2008 edition includes a section analyzing contemporary trends in state fragility and fragility at the global level, since 1995. The Report features a detailed assessment of state fragility for each of the world's 162 major countries (with populations greater than 500,000). The State Fragility Index and Matrix comprises a 2 by 4 matrix of indicators and composite indices (il)legitimacy, (in)effectiveness and state fragility. In support of the analysis, state fragility scores were calculated for each country for each year beginning with 1995.

Global Report on Conflict, Governance and State Fragility, 2007

Monty G. Marshall and Jack Goldstone

Black and white, 19 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables

Publisher: Foreign Policy Bulletin, Cambridge University Press, 2007

To view or download in Adobe Acrobat (.pdf) format, click here or on the cover icon.

 

This is the first edition in the George Mason University Center for Global Policy's annual report series on global system performance and fragility in the Globalization Era that began with the collapse of the Socialist Bloc in 1991. Global Report monitors the key trends in armed conflict, high casualty terrorist bombings and regime governance formally featured in the Peace and Conflict series. The global trends are updated through 2006. The 2007 edition features a section on "comparative regionalism" that gauges regional sub-system performance profiles based on general levels of systemic development (regional income distribution) in 1992 and 2005 and compares income across six regional sub-systems. It also briefly assesses the issue of energy independence (oil). The Report includes a detailed assessment of "state fragility" for each of the world's 162 major countries (with population greater than 500,000) that comprises a 2 by 4 matrix of indicators (effectiveness and legitimacy indicators for security, governance, economic and social dimensions of state performance) and composite indices of (il)legitimacy, (in)effectiveness and fragility.