If anything has become clear since we started publishing the Failed States Index in 2005, it’s that state failure is an entrenched problem — one the world is far from figuring out how to fix. Every one of the 20 countries atop this year’s index has been there before: Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Iraq have never made it out of the top 10, and Somalia takes the unwanted No. 1 spot for the fifth straight year. But despite an overall trend of stagnation — the average score on the index, prepared by the Fund for Peace and published annually by Foreign Policy, has remained more or less steady from year to year — the 2011 Arab revolutions prove that dramatic change is still a possibility, if not a guarantee of progress. The biggest shifts in this year’s index were registered by Libya, Syria, and Egypt — all three countries jumped markedly higher on the list, a reminder that although revolutions may weaken or topple dictators, they can also provoke greater instability. But there are gains being made as well: Mogadishu is in the midst of its longest period of relative peace in the past two decades. These gains may seem meager, but at the very least they suggest that, even when it comes to the worst cases of human misery, nothing is forever.

The 2012 Failed States Index

Photos: Postcards From Hell 2012



The Worst of the Worst



10 Reasons Why States Fail

By Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson

Was the Arab Spring Worth It?

By Hussein Ibish

The Watch List

By Jay Ulfelder

What’s Wrong with Pakistan?

By Robert D. Kaplan

Kaplan’s 8 Geographical Pivot Points

Are All States Failing States?

By David Rothkopf

It’s Lonely Being No. 1

By Paul Collier

How to Help Somalia

By Abdirahman Mohamed Mohamud Farole

Failed States by the Numbers: How Bad Are They?

Change Is the Only Constant

J.J. Messner

Flirting with Disaster

By Patricia Taft