States of fragility

43

Many states fail in their responsibilities to their citizens but those states which are fragile, failed or weak are particularly liable to render their citizens vulnerable. This latest issue of FMR includes 24 articles on fragile states and displacement, going behind the definitions, typologies and indicators to explore some of the concepts and realities, looking at a variety of cases and discussing some of the humanitarian and development responses.

In addition this issue contains eight further articles on other aspects of displacement – Syrians in Lebanon, older displaced people, use of human rights treaties for asylum seekers, arts in refugee camps, and more.

 

The design of FMR is now A5 (half of A4). In order to print it out properly, please use your printer’s ‘Booklet’ setting.

This issue of FMR is available online in English in pdf, html and audio formats, and will be available online in French, Spanish and Arabic in html and pdf formats. It will be available in print in all four languages.

FMR43 Listing is a four-sided expanded contents listing of all articles in this issue of FMR. It provides for each article: the title, the author(s) and their affiliation, the introductory sentences and a link to the full article online. It will be available online and in print in English, French, Spanish and Arabic.

Requesting copies
If you do NOT usually receive a print copy (of FMR or FMR Listing) and would like to receive a copy for your organisation, or if you require multiple copies for distribution to partners and policy/decision makers or for use at conferences/workshops, please contact the Editors at fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk (Please note that we prefer to provide the shorter Listing if large numbers are required for conferences and training.)

New size! This latest FMR is in A5 format – half the size of our usual FMR format. The new style FMR is lighter to carry, easier to read on mobile devices and cheaper to post. Please bear this in mind if you are printing off a copy from the website as you may wish to adjust your printer’s settings.

We encourage you to circulate or reproduce any articles in their entirety but please cite: Forced Migration Review issue 43 www.fmreview.org/fragilestates

We would like to thank Alex Betts for his assistance as special advisor on this issue. We are also very grateful to the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation, the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the UNDP Evaluation Office for their funding support for this issue, and to all of our current institutional donors, including those who generously provide unearmarked funding for FMR.

Cover image

Fragility: the state of being easily broken, damaged or destroyed. From Latin fragilis, formed from the root of frangere (“to break”).
Fractured glass image over a photo of a family of Ivorian refugees walking along a forest track towards Zwedru, a town in south-eastern Liberia, following an eruption of violence in Côte d’Ivoire in 2011. In that year Côte d’Ivoire ranked 10th in the Failed States Index that measures the fragility of states worldwide.
Ivorian refugees photo: UNHCR/G Gordon