Foreign Policy has been publishing the list of failed states since 2005. You can see how each country received its ranking, and where it has placed in the past years. Somalia has been No. 1 for the past three years. 177 countries were analyzed from an extensive variety of sources.

The top 10 countries barely score just one point apart from each other, showing that  placing lower on the list is nowhere nearly indicative of less severe conditions.

To calculate the scores, demographics, economics, refugee migration, security, development and human rights were considered along with other variables.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/21/2010_failed_states_index_interactive_map_and_rankings