After a brief period of declining fragility at the turn of the century, fragile states have become more prominent as their precarious situation worsens. In the last decade or so, the world has seen an increase in armed conflicts and violence around the world. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated fragile states’ performance in several important ways by further weakening their capacity for response and prevention and by delinking their economies from global financial, trade, and aid flows. In this analysis the authors draw on their prior research findings to consider questions of aid effectiveness in the context of states trapped in fragility. The chapter considers the impact of COVID-19 and how wars in Ukraine and Palestine are impacting fragile states and the long-term prospects for aid effectiveness in an era of geopolitical rivalry and great power competition.

Aunque el panorama internacional contemporáneo está dominado por guerras intrastatales, las relaciones internacionales difícilmente pueden considerarse pacíficas. En otras palabras, los Estados continúan participando en conflictos, pero por debajo del umbral de la guerra abierta. El artículo examina las tendencias generales y las consecuencias que el conflicto étnico tiene para la guerra futura, ya que los Estados emplean tácticas híbridas y estrategias de la zona gris para apoyar a sus parientes étnicos. Muchos de los conflictos étnicos actuales pueden describirse como secesionistas, en los cuales Estados externos y otros actores internacionales se ven involucrados en un conflicto, o irredentistas, en los cuales dos o más estados entran en guerra por una reclamación irredentista. El uso de tales conflictos étnicos por parte de interventores externos para participar en conflictos en la zona gris se está convirtiendo en una norma en los asuntos internacionales. El texto se centra en los casos de las intervenciones en la zona gris de Rusia en Georgia, Ucrania y la región Báltica, y se contrastan con los casos de Azerbaiyán-Armenia, el Sáhara Occidental, así como Etiopía-Eritrea, para mostrar tanto la continuidad como la transformación en la guerra. Se cierra identificando algunas de las razones por las cuales hay variación en estos casos y las implicaciones que esto tiene para la gestión de conflictos y el futuro de la guerra.

This chapter examines the broader tendencies and consequences that ethnic conflict has for modern warfare as states engage in hybrid tactics and grey zone strategies to support ethnic kin. Many of today's ethnic conflicts can be described as either secessionist, into which external states and other international actors are drawn, or irredentist, where two or more states enter into war over an irredentist claim. This chapter argues that ethnic-based movements serve as a permissive condition for states to pursue grey zone conflict, based on a desire to shift or sustain the balance of power using political, economic, and cyber instruments of intervention. This is demonstrated through the cases of Russia's grey zone interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic States. The chapter concludes by identifying some of the reasons why there is variation across these cases and why such strategies and tactics are difficult to deter.

This paper examines how diaspora can shape exits from state fragility. Potential linkages where effective policy reform might take place, include, but are not limited to, trade, direct investment and property rights. Understanding and explaining these linkages is important because much of the literature narrowly focuses on the importance and impact of diaspora remittances as a key input to reform and development. The purpose of this paper is to build on our prior research that examines six different linkages between diaspora and fragile states. Our focus is on host-homeland relations with a specific focus on the Canada-Bangladesh bilateral relationship. The paper unfolds in four sections. First, we compare and synthesize existing knowledge on understanding diaspora strategies in host-states using ideas on positionality and alignment. Second, we consider the conditions under which diaspora are likely to influence home-state policy. Third, to illustrate and demonstrate the utility of this comparative framework, we examine empirical evidence in support of the six linkages that shape Canada – Bangladesh diaspora relations. We have chosen Bangladesh as our case study because, despite regional conflict, civil war and entrenched poverty the country has moved to middle income status and can be considered to have exited fragility. In the fourth section, we conclude by focusing on implications for further research and policy.

This chapter is about the global decline of democracy and Canadian attempts to reverse that trend. The chapter takes a broad approach to the problem of democratic deline. We begin by considering how democratic decline has been accounted for by various indices of democracy. We advance our own argument that these indices have discounted the latent threat posed by democratic decline in the United States and concomitant declines in good governance globally. We offer our own explanation for the global democratic recession, which focuses on elite capture, the growth of a rent-seeking political class, and the diminished political autonomy of elected leaders. We discuss this in relation to various issues including allegations of foreign interference in Canada, Canada’s approach to democracy promotion globally and in Ukraine in particular. If this chapter has one central argument, it is this: democracy promotion begins at home with a focus on accountability and tackling inequality, populism, and corruption.

This introductory chapter is divided into two main sections. The first section discusses the three objectives of the handbook, which are: to examine the causes, costs and consequences of state fragility; to understand how theory and methods are applied in fragile contexts; and to examine how effective policies can be developed and applied to fragile states contexts. To address these three objectives, the chapter provides the theoretical underpinnings for fragility and its multidimensionality in terms of authority, legitimacy and capacity. It addresses the development challenges faced by fragile states and implications of (a lack of) legitimacy in reinforcing fragility traps. It also reflects on how aid, instead of helping, can contribute to a breakdown in state legitimacy by creating a rent management structure and patronage system that consolidate a ruling regime’s hold on power. Finally, the chapter considers the implications of Covid-19, and the war in Ukraine, for fragile states. The second section provides an overview of each of the remaining twenty-three chapters.

Despite the dominance of interstate wars in the contemporary international landscape, international relations can hardly be considered peaceful. In other words, states continue to engage in conflict, albeit below the threshold of open warfare. This paper examines the broader tendencies and consequences that ethnic conflict poses for future warfare as states employ hybrid tactics and gray zone strategies to support ethnic kin. Many of today's ethnic conflicts can be described as either seces- sionist where external states and other international actors are drawn into a conflict, or irredentist, where two or more states enter into war over an irredentist claim. We argue that using such ethnic conflicts by external interveners for engagement in gray zone conflict is becoming a norm in inter- national affairs. We focus on the cases of Russia's gray zone interventions in Georgia, Ukraine, and the Baltic region, contrasting them with the cases of Azerbaijan-Armenia, Western Sahara, as well as Ethiopia-Eritrea, to demonstrate both continuity and transformation in warfare. We conclude by identifying some of the reasons for variation across these cases and the implications for conflict man- agement and the future of war.

The objective of this paper is to focus on fragility research findings and examine what works or does not work in development aid and development cooperation in fragile and conflictaffected contexts.We draw on our own research findings as well as country-level studies.We examine questions of aid effectiveness in the context of supporting good governance in fragile states in the first part of the paper.We then consider the impact of COVID-19 and implications for aid effectiveness in fragile states in the second part.In the third and final section we briefly consider how the war in Ukraine is

Recent research has shown that it is difficult to find monocausal explanations for why states are stuck in a fragility trap. Focusing on one factor such as economic development or political development is rarely sufficient; not all trapped states experience large-scale violence, and neither is conflict intensity constant within a given trapped state. Using the authority, legitimacy, and capacity (ALC) framework drawn from the Country Indicators for Foreign Policy (CIFP) project, Carment and Samy (2019) argue that states trapped in fragility face challenges related mostly to legitimacy and authority, as opposed to capacity. These states are characterized by under-governed spaces, they cannot provide core public goods such as security to their citizens and their governing regimes cannot command public loyalty and support for their legislative agendas. Using CIFP's ALC framework, this chapter considers how SDG 16 – on peace, justice, and strong institutions – can allow countries to exit the fragility trap. To answer this question, we first identify those states that are trapped in fragility and discuss their performance with respect to SDG 16 in the last few years. Together with contrasting cases of Afghanistan (a trapped state) and Bangladesh (a country whose fragility scores have improved), we argue that legitimacy plays a key role in explaining why these states are held back. Finally, we conclude with implications for policy.

Principal-agent theory, tells us that as "change agents," diaspora are "delegated" by host-states (the principal) some element of authority in decision-making and resource allocation (such as remittance flows). If this delegation of authority is problematic, it is because diasporas will often know more about local homeland situations than the host-state. In essence, diaspora network development raises a fundamental problem of information asymmetries, in that diasporas with local knowledge enjoy a distinct advantage over host-states that provide policies, resources and institutional mechanisms (directly or indirectly depending on positionality) to support such activities. Diasporas function with unwritten ground rules (UWGs) that, depending on the kind of relations between home and host-state, guide their behaviour either outside institutionalised relational frameworks or within them. Detailed analysis of the mechanisms, tactics and fundraising that diaspora networks rely on will not only improve our knowledge of these UWGs but will also help us understand how positionality favours some kind of diaspora activity over others. Since the incentives to deploy UWGs and to engage in fragile states vary from case to case and within the group, comparative analysis is warranted.

Ukraine's crisis has dramatically affected the economy of the country. The ongoing conflict, loss of territories and internal and external migration have all resulted in a 30% increase in unemployment coupled with a large informal economy. With male migration to EU states and an expansion in the predominantly male military, Ukrainian women have become a crucial part of the informal economy, dependent on remittances from Canada and elsewhere, but also present in informal activities previously dominated by men. With labour migration to Canada and elsewhere we ask how have diaspora connections influenced gender dynamics and how in turn do these dynamics reshape diaspora remittance strategies, investment and household consumption in Ukraine? We focus on an expanded interpretation of the informal economy, that includes the foreign activities of labour migrants, remittance flows, household work and other labour roles, including traditionally unpaid or self-employed work, performed by women. We find that, since the 2014 crisis, there have been significant changes in the way in which Canada and like-minded countries address economic weakness that, on the one hand, help offset hardship at the community and household level, but, on the other hand, do not directly address long-term fragility and perpetuate a cycle of dependency. This trend is likely to continue as long as Ukraine's economic performance remains fragile and without necessary diasporic coordination in favour of durable social, human and physical capital investment.