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Examining onsets of political instability in countries worldwide from 1955 to 2003, we develop a model that distinguishes countries that experienced instability from those that remained stable with a two-year lead time and over 80% accuracy. Intriguingly, the model uses few variables and a simple specification. The model is accurate in forecasting the onsets of both violent civil wars and nonviolent democratic reversals, suggesting common factors in both types of change. Whereas regime type is typically measured using linear or binary indicators of democracy/autocracy derived from the 21-point Polity scale, the model uses a nonlinear five-category measure of regime type based on the Polity components. This new measure of regime type emerges as the most powerful predictor of instability onsets, leading us to conclude that political institutions, properly specified, and not economic conditions, demography, or geography, are the most important predictors of the onset of political instability.

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If one merely counts countries becoming democratic, progress in the international system looks impressive. However, more relevant for future stability is whether countries-whether democratic or not-are fragile, having ineffective and/or illegitimate governments. Moreover, the size of fragile countries, not merely their number, will be important for the future. Recent data shows that fertility has stalled at very high levels in many fragile states, including several of the largest, creating a situation in which almost all the growth in the world's future labor force in coming decades will occur in fragile states. Indeed, the world seems likely to go from a situation in which two-thirds of workers are employed in stable states to the reverse, in which the majority of the global working-age population is found in fragile states with a weak ability to provide education, investment and jobs to ensure their productivity. Unless this trend can be reversed, both global economic growth and regional political stability will be at risk because projected global population growth is overwhelmingly concentrated in fragile states.