The lesson of successful countries which has been repeatedly asserted is that, in the modern times, a country needs neither to be rich in resources nor to have a history of capitalism so as to succeed in industrialisation after some decades – it will achieve that if it can avoid institutional failures. Lessons of successes could be difficult to apply, but those of failures can, in principle, be avoided. To be successful, first and foremost, latecomer countries need to learn the lessons of failures. The Fragile States Index (FSI, formerly the Failed States Index) has been designed with various indicators that help countries avoid failures. | Success or Failure of Nations and Vietnam’s FSI Scores in 2005-2016 Period Ho Si Quy1 1 Institute of Social Sciences Information, Viet Nam Academy of Social Sciences. Email: Received: 1 June 2017. Accepted: 31 July 2017. Abstract: Since institutional economics associated with Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson became fashionable, the roles of economic and political institutions have been considered to be the fundamental and decisive factors for nations’ prosperity. Countries with the inclusive socioeconomic institutional framework have chances to succeed, while poor nations are tied up in extractive institutions. Other factors, such as the geographical and natural conditions, cultural and human resources., are, of course, very important, but they are not decisive. In Vietnam, the majority of scholars agree with this point of view. In many fora, the issue of institutional reform has been raised as an especially urgent requirement. The lesson of successful countries which has been repeatedly asserted is that, in the modern times, a country needs neither to be rich in resources nor to have a history of capitalism so as to succeed in industrialisation after some decades – it will achieve that if it can avoid institutional failures. Lessons of successes could be difficult to apply, but those of failures can, in principle, be avoided. To be successful, first and foremost, latecomer countries need to learn the lessons of failures. The Fragile States Index (FSI, formerly the Failed States Index) has been designed with various indicators that help countries avoid failures. Keywords: Fragile States Index (FSI), country, Vietnam. Subject classification: Philosophy 1. Introduction The Fragile States Index (FSI) was introduced by the Fund for Peace under the American magazine “Foreign Policy” in 2005. Since then, annual reports on the index have been received with great enthusiasm. Despite some criticism, most scholars and nations, including
