Index of failed states fails

Oppenheimer:

Is this serious, I thought to myself as I was reading the index [of failed states]. How could the magazine place Colombia and the Dominican Republic among what it describes as the world's 20 most "critical" countries? And how could it fail to include Bolivia, where presidents come and go faster than you can learn their names, in its 60-country list?

Funny, I thought the exact same thing when I read the index. Someone at work asked me for the full name of Bolivia's president yesterday, and I answered, "I'll give it to you but that doesn't mean he'll still be president by the time you give your presentation." I also wonder how this list missed Nicaragua, which I'd probably place at #3 for instability in Latin America right now. Continuing on.

In the Americas, there is little question that Haiti is a failed state. That government is incapable of securing order, and there wouldn't be even a semblance of normalcy if U.N. peacekeepers weren't patrolling the streets.

But Colombia is a different matter. While Colombia has a decades-old armed conflict and has long topped the world's rankings of kidnappings for ransom, there is little question that it is a more viable country than it was five years ago. Since December 2000, kidnappings nationwide have been reduced by 74 percent, homicides by 32 percent and terrorist acts by 62 percent, according to government figures. Coca cultivation has dropped by 33 percent, the figures show

...As for the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, they are not failed states either. There are many things that don't work in the Dominican Republic, but placing it alongside violence-torn Burundi and the Central African Republic is an exaggeration.

Writing a blog is so much easier on days when people write things you agree with and you can simply plagiarize them (within fair-use exemptions, of course).

My conclusion: The index of failed states fails the test of common sense.

Probably. Measuring failed states is important for US policy, but this particular index is definitely missing something critical to make the errors that it did.

UPDATE: Update to this post with more links and comments here.