in: Third World Quarterly, 35: 3 [also published as Special Issue Book, London: Routledge].<\/p>\n
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The special issue \u2018Fragile States: A Political Concept\u2019 investigates the emergence, dissemination and reception of the notion of \u2018state fragility\u2019. It analyses the process of conceptualisation, examining how the \u2018fragile states\u2019 concept was framed by policy makers to describe reality in accordance with their priorities in the fields of development and security. The contributors to the issue investigate the instrumental use of the \u2018state fragility\u2019 label in the legitimisation of Western policy interventions in countries facing violence and profound poverty. They also emphasise the agency of actors \u2018on the receiving end\u2019, describing how the elites and governments in so-called \u2018fragile states\u2019 have incorporated and reinterpreted the concept to fit their own political agendas. A first set of articles examines the role played by the World Bank, the oecd<\/span>, the European Union and the g7+ coalition of \u2018fragile states\u2019 in the transnational diffusion of the concept, which is understood as a critical element in the new discourse on international aid and security. A second set of papers employs three case studies (Sudan, Indonesia and Uganda) to explore the processes of appropriation, reinterpretation and the strategic use of the \u2018fragile state\u2019 concept.<\/p>\n