2. Prolegomena to the Basic Concepts

In today’s globalized world, among the numerous problems related to the functioning of states and their numerous relations in the international arena, the issue of fragile states is gaining more and more importance. In fact, over the past three decades, Western political elites, aid agencies, and the international bureaucracy have widely embraced the thesis that socio-political conflicts, administrative inefficiency of the power apparatus, and severe difficulties in the state’s fundamental functions to provide the essential services to its citizens threaten not only the collapse of and so fragile state but can also have severe regional and global consequences. In this sense, the term fragile state describes not only the state of weakness and disintegration of social ties and the dismantling of the essential elements of the state-legal structure but also the situation related to the economic destruction of the state, poverty, hunger, humanitarian disasters, armed conflicts, as well as violations of fundamental civil liberties and human rights.