According to a number of researchers, Malaysia is hardly a “failed state”, as some have described it. In an opinion post published days ago, EMIR Research think-tank researchers Dr Rais Hussin and Jamari Mohtar highlighted that Malaysia is placed 123rd out of 179 nations in this year’s Fragile State Index (FSI 2021), an increase of 0.7 points year after year.

Both researchers pointed out that Malaysia earned a total of 56.9 points, compared to 111.7 points for Yemen, being the most fragile state at the top of the list. Finland on the other hand, earns 16.2 points which ranks at the bottom of the ranking and makes Finland the least fragile state in 2021.

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Presented by the Fund for Peace, a non-profit organisation based in the United States, the FSI is based on four key indicators and 12 sub indicators, with each indicator receiving a score of one to 10 points, with one being the best and 10 being the worst.

Unity (security state, factionalized elites, and group grievances); economic (economic decline, uneven development, and human flight and brain drain); political (state legitimacy, public services, and human rights and rule of law); and social and cross-cutting indicators (demographic pressure, refugees and internally displaced persons, and external intervention) are among the indicators.   

Malaysia ended up scoring the lowest three indicators in external intervention with 2.6 points, refugees and internally displaced persons with 3 points, and economic decline with 3.3 points; while the highest three indicators are factionalised elites and human rights, each scoring 6.8 points, and state legitimacy with 6.3 points as mentioned by Rais and Jamari.