State fragility has resonated in global public policy-making since the turn of the millennium. Having featured prominently in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, fragility has not only been perceived to lie at the heart of civil wars in impoverished countries. Considered as constituting the ‘source of many of the world’s most serious problems’, fragility has also been deemed a threat to global peace and stability. In defiance of an otherwise fast-paced world of fashionable terms and ephemeral buzzwords, fragility continues to be perceived as ‘the issue of our time’, as noted by World Bank President Kim in his opening remarks to the 2018 World Bank Fragility Forum. The centrality of fragility in international development agendas is evidenced in economic terms: in recent years, donors spent around 65% of all official development assistance (ODA) in the 58 contexts identified as fragile by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.