This book explores how unpacking the concept of fragility and studying its dimensions and forms can help to build policy-relevant understandings of how states become more resilient and the role of aid. It was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Rachel M. Gisselquist is a political scientist and currently a Research Fellow with UNU-WIDER. She works on the politics of the developing world, with particular attention to ethnic politics and group-based inequality, state fragility, governance, and democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. She holds a PhD from MIT.

1. Introduction: Varieties of fragility: implications for aid Rachel M. Gisselquist 2. Disaggregating state fragility: a method to establish a multidimensional empirical typology Jörn Grävingholt, Sebastian Ziaja and Merle Kreibaum 3. Conceptualising state collapse: an institutionalist approach Daniel Lambach, Eva Johais and Markus Bayer 4. Towards a theory of fragile state transitions: evidence from Yemen, Bangladesh and Laos David Carment, Joe Landry, Yiagadeesen Samy and Scott Shaw 5. Aid and state transition in Ghana and South Korea Jiyoung Kim 6. Aid and policy preferences in oil-rich countries: comparing Indonesia and Nigeria Ahmad Helmy Fuady 7. Development assistance and the lasting legacies of rebellion in Burundi and Rwanda Devon E.A. Curtis 8. Aid, accountability and institution building in Ethiopia: the self-limiting nature of technocratic aid Berhanu Abegaz