Saturday 31 May 2008

Singapore: 29, UK: 49

Peace DoveVision of Humanity has published their world peace rankings, putting Singapore in a relatively comfortable #29th place, well above Malaysia (#38), UK (#49th) and USA (#97). Topping the list of non-hitters are:

  1. Iceland
  2. Denmark
  3. Norway
  4. New Zealand
  5. Japan
  6. Ireland
  7. Portugal
  8. Finland
  9. Luxembourg
  10. Austria
  11. Canada
  12. Switzerland
  13. Sweden

So you might be wondering what is being measured here as some places (Iceland, Denmark) seem natural choices whereas putting Malaysia ahead of England seems to fly in the face of headline news. You can follow the link but comparing UK and Singapore highlighted some standout differences:

Potential for terrorists acts. UK 3, Singapore 2 based on a qualitative assessment of the potential for terrorist acts. Ranked 1-5 (very low-very high) by EIU analysts.

Number of internal and external conflicts fought. UK 4, Singapore 1, based on a UCDP defined conflict as: "a contested incompatibility that concerns government and/or territory where the use of armed force between two parties, of which at least one is the government of a state, results in at least 25 battle-related deaths in a year"

Estimated number of deaths from organised conflict (external). UK 2, Singapore 1.

The democracy and transparency scores drag Singapore down, especially freedom of press (8.3 versus 5.6), but beats UK on corruption (8.4 vs 9.3), an expected strong suit for Singapore.

One to watch perhaps is willingness of citizens to fight in wars. UK 2, Singapore 5 (higher is more willing). Interesting, but we've always got Glasgow...

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