A post by "Chris Brown" | http://expatriateruminations.com/Blog/ To see more posts by this author, click here.

Remember the, “Mexico is at risk for failing as a state” narrative which echoed through the USA media a few weeks back?

The Brookings Institution, last year, produced The Index of State Weakness in the Developing World , which “ranks and assesses 141 developing nations according to their relative performance in four critical spheres: economic, political, security and social welfare.” The index was derived through aggregating information in a number of reports produced by academic and governmental organizations.

So, where does Mexico rank, with number 1, Somolia, being most at risk, and 141, the Slovak Republic, being most stable? Mexico comes in at 120th, ahead of Columbia at 47th most likely to fail, Brazil at 99th, and Argentina at 115th to cite just a few. So why are we not seeing media reports of Columbia as a failing state?