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INTRODUCTION than being fragile exceptions to an otherwise increasingly democratic world, the countries we studied increasingly represent the norm.

Our work focuses on the fragile relationships between people and the states and other authorities that affect their lives. Whereas fragility is often used to apply to states or settings, for us fragility encompasses the notion of unresolved contestation over the legitimacy, role, and control of institutions of authority. The A4EA focus countries are fragile in this sense for different reasons—due to their own specific cultural, social and political histories in which conflict, violence and repression loom large. Yet they share common features: fragmentation of social and political groups, an absence of trust, weakened institutions, and a dominance of informal networks over formal processes and institutions.