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Ransom Riggs
The Global Peace Index
by Ransom Riggs - May 30, 2007 - 11:38 AM

peacepin.jpgApparently it’s a competition now. A new study called the Global Peace Index, just released, ranks nations across the world according to their “peacefulness,” using factors like military spending, violent crime rates, the size of a country’s prison population and organized crime rings to reach their conclusions. The number one country? Norway, followed closely by New Zealand, Denmark, Ireland and Japan. (The high ranking of the latter country just goes to further illustrate the strange paradox of its recent spate of dismemberments. What’s up with that?) Not too surprisingly, the US ranks somewhere near the back of the pack, earning a ranking of 96th out of 121, Iraq being the 121st. Other nasty places to live, peace-wise, include Sudan (120), Israel (119), Russia (118) and Nigeria (117). Other factors the study used to determine rankings (which may explain why Israel is grouped among the former) include a country’s relations with its neighbors (natch) and political instability.

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Comments (10)

  1. Nice to see that Ireland has come so far with peace. Weren’t they stoning each other’s children (pre 9/11) for attending the wrong schools or something?

    posted by Johnny Cat on 5-30-2007 at 11:55 am

  2. Golly, as “world police force”, the U.S. doesn’t really have much of a chance of getting very high up on that list now, does it?

    Unless, of course, the U.S. minds it own business and lets everyone else kill themselves.

    posted by Ed Hands on 5-30-2007 at 12:09 pm

  3. i really wish that i could say that the us has a chance of making it’s way up that ladder soon, but like Ed Hands said un less of course the us minds its own business and lets everybody else kill themselves. but then again, we would have to work really hard to do that & i honestly think that that’s to much work. i prefer to be lazy!

    it more fun! :-D

    posted by trouble on 5-30-2007 at 1:00 pm

  4. Is it just me or did they leave out a bunch of countries. Where’s North Korea, for instance? Or the Republic of the Congo? They can’t claim to rank the world and then leave out half of it…

    posted by jill on 5-30-2007 at 1:11 pm

  5. @johnny cat: well, i think you mean northern ireland which is part of the uk… and what does 9/11 have to do with that???

    posted by vaughnie on 5-31-2007 at 10:36 am

  6. There were thousands of pieces of data used to compile the list, perhaps they could not get accurate information from those countries that were not included on the list? Just a theory. I agree that it paints a misleading picture when so many places are missing

    posted by Kath on 5-31-2007 at 12:28 pm

  7. I’d treat these figures with caution. In addition to some countries being missed off completely, I looked at the UK figures and it gave 99% adult literacy in those over age 15. We have a very public literacy crisis in the UK with something like 1 in 5 primary school children being functionally illiterate at age 11. Now either they’re catching up really well, or these figures are loose to the poing of inaccuracy….. have a look at the details for your own country and see what I mean….

    posted by Aluinn on 5-31-2007 at 10:41 pm

  8. By Ireland I’m sure it means the Republic of Ireland rather than the island of Ireland.

    posted by Al on 5-31-2007 at 11:47 pm

  9. i agree with you aluinn. i come from ghana and we are ranked 40th(by african standards thats good!!!). my problem is that whiles there is(and there never has been) no scientific data on the employment situation in the country, they loosely place unemployment @ 8%. i dont have stats but i can bet my last dime its way higher than that. how do i know? i’m 1 of them and i know we are a lot.

    posted by koby on 6-2-2007 at 4:30 am

  10. The 49% of data “facts” used for scoring is actualy an opinion-only of Economist Inteligence Unit analist, for 15% of date source is unknown. The way to calculate score and weights are actualy hidden and can not be controled.

    So… from my poin of view is a way to hide brutality of UK and USA in Irak and other countries.

    posted by Abram Razzuvaev on 6-3-2007 at 6:13 pm

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