Via Foreign Policy, the annual Fragile States Index:

For 12 years, the Fragile States Index (FSI), created by the Fund for Peace and published by Foreign Policy, has taken stock of the year’s events, using 12 social, economic, and political indicators to analyze how wars, peace accords, environmental calamities, and political movements have pushed countries toward stability or closer to the brink of collapse. The index then ranks the countries accordingly, from most fragile to least.

And in terms of the countries that became more fragile this year, there were perhaps few surprises. The Syrian civil war has been roiling the Middle East since 2011. But in 2015, spillover from the chaos finally hit Europe in the form of more than 1 million asylum-seekers who flooded into the continent. Their arrival sent Europe into a panic — and some previously stable countries were sent sliding up the ranks of the index.

Hungary and the other central European countries that line the so-called Balkan route from the Middle East to Europe saw a xenophobic backlash, often stoked by their own politicians, raising growing concerns about the state of human rights in these countries. The migrant crisis also played a role in the United Kingdom’s referendum on whether to leave the European Union. Those advocating that Britain go it alone often cited concerns about migration and the need for Britain to maintain control of its own borders. On June 23, in a stunning turn of events, the country voted to leave the European Union, sending global markets into a nosedive and leading to the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron.

In West Africa, the Boko Haram insurgency has taken its toll across a wide swath of countries. Chad, Cameroon, and Niger last year saw their share of violence, and also of refugees fleeing the violence. Niger and Cameroon each hosted more than 100,000 people displaced by the Boko Haram insurgency by the end of the year — a reminder that, while news about the migration crisis in Europe makes headlines, the countries that bear most of the burden for hosting those displaced by instability are often the ones next door.

One bright spot in the index was long-suffering Sri Lanka: Sri Lankans in 2015 elected a reformist as their new prime minister, who has kicked off his tenure with measures to help soothe the country’s war wounds and speed ethnic reconciliation, making it this year’s most improved state.

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