Today I’ll cover the other three regional groupings in the third world, Europe, Latin America, and the Small Island States. And I’ll do so after the jump.
Europe has nine third world countries, all of them previously communist. At the top of the list, remarkable after having been the poorest country on the continent only six years ago, is Macedonia. Despite have a 40% unemployment rate (highest on the continent), Macedonia has a remarkably large GDP and the other indicators are all good. The simmering ethnic tensions in the country have largely simmered down, at least for now, so the prospects are good for Macedonia to move out of the third world soon.
At the bottom of the pile is Moldova, Europe’s poorest country. The Russian government actively supports a secession movement in the northeast. The present government consists entirely of former communists, and aside from a few wineries and large state-run wheat farms, the economy consists mainly of buying cheap goods in Ukraine and re-exporting them at higher prices to other countries in Europe. Years ago there was talk that Moldova might merge with Romania, but Romania is moving ahead with EU membership and a recovering economy, and I don’t imagine they’d want Moldova dragging them down.
In between are a variety of other places. Serbia & Montenegro is near the bottom, Ukraine is near the top, and the rest are mashed in between. Nearly all these countries have literacy rates in the high 90s, life expectancies near or over 70, and infant mortality rates of 20 or below. Aside from Armenia and Belarus all are in the process of developing democratic governments, and all are eager to move forward, join the EU, and get on with being a part of the richest continent around—though they may never get that chance.
The other countries are Belarus, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Albania, Armenia, and Georgia. Georgia, incidentally, is called “Sak’art’velo” in the Georgian language, and though no one could pronounce it correctly I still think it would be easier on us American types to start calling the country by its proper name. They make good wines there, so the topic may come up more in the future.
Latin America—which is to say, the rest of the hemisphere south of the United States—has 18 countries in the third world, which is a majority of the countries in the hemisphere. Brazil, Panama, and Belize all have democratic governance, some semblance of individual freedom, and reasonably diverse economies, and all score above 600; these will probably escape the third world fairly soon. Colombia and Venezuela also score above 600 but suffer from armed insurrection and from Hugo Chavez, respectively. Chavez thinks he is a cross between Castro and Bolivar for the 21st Century, and if he holds on to power for another four years he will bankrupt what was once a very promising country. He’s no Robert Mugabe, but I’m told the two are good friends.
At the bottom of the list, scoring in the 300s, are Bolivia, Honduras, and Nicaragua. No surprise here. Bolivia can’t keep a government in power for more than a year at a stretch; Honduras still hasn’t really recovered from Hurricane Mitch, and Nicaragua, though moderately peaceful for the past 12 years, has failed utterly to diversify the economy away from bananas.
That said, Honduras and Nicaragua, along with the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, and El Salvador, are part of the recently-passed CAFTA agreement, which may bode well for their future. Of course, to see any benefit from the trade agreement Nicaragua will need to come up with something to trade.
Other American countries in the third world include Peru, Paraguay, Jamaica, Suriname, Ecuador, Guyana, and Cuba. The sole failed state in the western hemisphere is Haiti, which has a score less than half that of Nicaragua.
The last “regional” grouping are the Small Island States, which are not all in a single region but have much more in common with one another than with other countries that might be in their region.
At the top of the list are Samoa, Fiji, and Dominica, all just a few points away from one another. Fiji was once on the verge of escaping the third world altogether, until a coup attempt and ethnic violence brought the economy to a virtual standstill and nearly eliminated tourism for several months. Samoa and Dominica, on the other hand, are two of the third world’s most successful pluggers, steadily and consistently raising their quality of life year by year. Their scores are not spectacular, but if trends continue they’ll be on their way to the land of Transition before too long.
At the bottom of the list is the Solomon Islands. This country had been doing rather well until an ill-advised secession attempt by one of the islands led to nationwide ethnic strife and stopped the economy dead. The Solomons slipped into the failed states and at one point scored as low as 180 points; the country has since recovered and should continue to do so. As one of the most resource-rich of all small island states, the Solomon Islands should be able to recover their lost economic prowess and continue growing.
Economic growth, however, can be elusive for many small island states. Few of them have any significant resources aside from their status as tropical paradises, and while some of them have made great gains with tourism and offshore banking, many others remain too tiny or remote to develop.
Philosophically, however, development in the small islands is a different matter than it is in, for example, Africa. People living in third world and failed states in Africa are living unpleasant lives; disease is rampant and mortality rates are very high, even from diseases we in the developed world think of as insignificant, such as diarrhea (the leading cause of infant death in many countries). Civil war, sex slavery, human trafficking, famine, lack of potable water or reasonable shelter; these are what people in most poor countries around the world are dealing with on a daily basis. It’s in the interest of humanity to raise these peoples’ living standards.
But life in the poor island countries tends to be a little different. Few of the small island states suffer from significant disease rates, although schistosomiasis is not uncommon (this is a particularly nasty worm-related disease you don’t want to know about). Birth rates tend not to be very high on small islands, since lack of space is an everyday concern. Civil war is, at least in the smaller countries (Fiji and Solomon Islands are the largest small island states), all but unheard of; sex slavery and human trafficking are essentially nonexistent. The people of the islands—especially the Pacific islands—have been living on islands for eons and, as I suppose Jared Diamond would explain, know how to avoid famine in their native environments. The people on many small islands are living as they have lived for hundreds of years. The country of Tuvalu, for example, is selling its .tv domain name to television producers around the world, but Tuvalu does not have any local television stations, and almost no televisions at all outside the government. Are the Tuvaluans missing anything? Hard to say. They are poor, yes. But they certainly aren’t as miserable as the Ethiopians.
Anyway, among the small island states in the third world, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Tonga, Niue, Nauru, the Cook Islands, Fiji, and Samoa are sprinkled around the Pacific. The Maldives are in the Indian Ocean, and the Seychelles are off the east coast of Africa. Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines are in the Caribbean.
The rest of Pacific island countries are much smaller than those previously discussed. Nauru consists of a single island. Once it was the richest in the Pacific, its 12,000 residents living fat off of proceeds from phosphate mining. The government invested its surplus in a development account, for when the phosphate ran out, which it did in 2003. The government then proceeded to spend almost the entire surplus in 2004. Nauru’s environment has been destroyed by phosphate mining, and its small size, remoteness and lack of facilities make developing a tourist trade difficult if not impossible. What the Nauruans will do in the future is hard to know. Most will probably emigrate to Australia and New Zealand in the coming years.
Niue is another interesting case, also a single island, but with no phosphates at all to get rich from and only 2000 people. The Niueans today live much as the Niueans did 400 years ago when the island was first sited by European explorers, albeit with the trappings of modernity. More than twice the population of the island live abroad, mostly in New Zealand, and the money they send home accounts for a significant portion of the Niuean economy. Nauru will probably look much like Niue ten years from now (albeit with a strip-mined phosphate rock center that bakes in the midday sun at temperatures up to 100 degrees).
The Maldives and Seychelles have profited from tourism, being much closer to people who like to be tourists. The Seychelles are popular with Europeans, especially the British; the Maldives draw tourists from throughout the Muslim world. Tourism has meant money for these countries, though it is new money and government services have not yet caught up with the need for education and health care.
The Caribbean countries are all trying to shake off the old bananas-and-sugar economies; the four still here in the third world are the ones who’ve had the least success. St. Vincent has long been the poorest Caribbean country; much of its land area is the string of islets known as the Grenadines, so the country is almost more like the archipelagic Pacific countries than its neighbors. St. Lucia suffers from its location astride the meaty part of the Caribbean hurricane belt, but next-door Barbados is a first-world country despite that handicap. The government hopes a new cruise-ship terminal and high-dollar accommodations will help bring the country’s quality of life up. Dominica suffers from an almost total lack of beaches, one of the few islands (and the only independent one) in the Caribbean to suffer so. Nonetheless, the government recently hit upon the idea of selling the country as an eco/adventure tourism destination. The entire middle part of the island is a virtually uninhabited (and uninhabitable) national park, and as American tourists start traveling more in the future Dominica should do well. Grenada, unfortunately, has taken a rather serious step backwards in the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. Hurricane Emily struck the country earlier this year, though did little additional damage. Recovery efforts continue, but more than half the country’s buildings still lack water, and many are still without power, not to mention solid roofs. The Paris Club’s most recent round of debt forgiveness managed to skip over Grenada, evidently because it is so small as to be invisible, and the country’s main sources of foreign exchange, the spice plantations, were badly damaged and won’t recover for several years if ever. Rapid reconstruction of the limited tourist infrastructure, along with new construction in that area, are Grenada’s best hope for macroeconomic stability in the future—at least until the country’s lenders remove their blinders and forgive Grenada’s debt.
09 August 2005
Amazing Discovery: NASA still competent!
Those of us who are true believers in space exploration knew it all along, of course. It was disappointing that the weather today was too lousy in Florida for a landing here (with consequent sonic booms over the Tampa Bay area), but it was thrilling to see the old ship come in for a safe landing. Congratulations to all involved, including all of us taxpayers. It's great to see the shuttles flying again (even if only temporarily).
08 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part IV
As it is the largest grouping of countries, I break the third world down into six regional subgroups. Today we’ll discuss Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
There are seven African third world states; aside from Mauritius, all other African states are considered failing. This is rather depressing. Even among the third world African states, things are not particularly sunny.
Ghana is just coming off spillover problems from the civil wars that have affected almost every country bordering it (the lone exception being dreadfully poor Burkina Faso, who’s people don’t have enough money to fight a civil war), and though it was once the shining light of West Africa it’s light has dimmed somewhat; it scores just 268 points, barely qualifying for the third world. The country’s government is stable, reasonably democratic and only moderately corrupt, and personal liberties are wide-ranging for Africa. However, literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality are all significantly worse than the third world average. GDP growth is just barely keeping ahead of population growth (though that number has come down a great deal in the last few years). Surrounded by strife and poverty (and containing a fair bit of those itself), Ghana can either become an island of growth and stability or slip back to join its failing neighbors. Ghana is, thus, an example of a country that would very definitely deserve targeted official development aid, but we tend to send most of that aid to other countries in the region that are not equipped to make use of it.
Equatorial Guinea is not much better off than Ghana (scoring 294), but differs from Ghana in that it has a horribly repressive and corrupt despot at the head of its government and virtually no personal freedoms at all. The country stays afloat on the basis of its significant oil and natural gas wealth, but that money does not trickle down to the average Equatoguinean in the street. Official development aid that goes to EG tends to be pocketed by the government.
The remaining African third world states are Gabon, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, all of which are significantly richer than the other two. Gabon survives on oil wealth and appears rich only because it has such a small population; desperately needed government and economic reforms are probably decades away, after the passing of the country’s only president to date, Omar Bongo.
The other countries are part of the southern African cone of development, which used to include Zimbabwe until Robert Mugabe went insane and destroyed the place. Swaziland is firmly in the third world, but South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia are all rich, stable, democratic, and have good literacy rates and growing economies. However, these are among the countries worst hit by AIDS; Swaziland this year took from Botswana the dubious title of Country With The Highest Rate Of AIDS Infection; all but South Africa have rates over 30% (SA is slightly lower). The high rate of AIDS infection screws up most other population numbers: the median age in these countries is in the teens (which is common among failed states), and life expectancy numbers range from a high of 43.9 in Namibia to a low of 33.9 in Botswana.
It is these low numbers that keep these countries in the third world, but the numbers aren’t fully accurate. Residents of southern Africa who avoid the AIDS plague—and that’s about 2/3 of them—live well into their 60s and 70s. But many of those born with the disease—almost a fifth of live births in these countries—don’t reach adulthood, and those who do are nearly always orphaned by that time and cannot afford the drugs that will keep them alive much longer. Without question, AIDS is the single biggest problem in southern Africa, and in numerous other third world and failing states; no amount of development aid will correct this problem unless it is specifically targeted to AIDS prevention, but it rarely is.
Asia has 12 third world countries. As I mentioned yesterday, they run the gamut. The wealthiest by a wide margin is Kazakhstan, which has a vast territory, small population, and huge amount of natural gas. Whether the government will use that resource for good or ill is quite up in the air.
Next on the list in China, and below China are a number of countries that are several years away from scoring high enough to escape to third world, if any of them could do so even with the right score. Asia is not a continent with notably good government. The Phillippines have a democracy of sorts, but stability is not a concept frequently associated therewith. Sri Lanka has a strong democracy, but a seemingly intractable civil war. Papua New Guinea just concluded a civil war, but with a score of only 267 and virtually no GDP growth it’s hard to see what might spark the place to develop. Kyrgyzstan has recently overthrown their post-Soviet president/despot, but whether he’s merely to be replaced with another one or not remains to be seen.
In fact, only India meets the non-statistical requirements to escape the third world, and with a score of 305 (up from 255 five years ago), a rapidly expanding population, and one of the least even income distributions in Asia, India has a long way to go.
Other third world Asian countries of less distinction include Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. None of these are very happy places to live.
The Middle East has 13 countries in the third world. Two, Oman and Saudi Arabia, score high enough to escape the third world but… well, these are Saudi Arabia and Oman we’re talking about. Not exactly bastions of libertarianism. Of the oil sheikdoms of the Middle East, however, Oman is a special case; the Emir’s program of “Omanization” has reduced the number of third country workers to a very low level, guaranteeing most young Omanis a job and giving the place the feeling of a unique and special country. The other Gulf states are like the various suburbs of California: they all look about the same, and dark-skinned non-citizens do all the real work. Oman is different.
Aside from oil-rich Arabian states, there are oil-rich North African states. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco all live in the third world, with Egypt and Morocco at the bottom and Tunisia at the top. Tunisia has a semblance of democratic government, which is a nice feature, and the women aren’t covered in tablecloths all the time unless they want to be. The president of the country is not a good man, but he has succeeded in getting Tunisia favored status with the EU, lowering trade barriers, and he has also brought industries to Tunisia other than oil drilling and refining. Tunisia scores a 596; a few years of development under the EU trade regime and a multi-party election, and Tunisia will escape the third world.
Turkey might also escape some year soon, especially if the EU doesn’t refuse to open accession talks with the Turkish government later this year as numerous European politicians/idiots have suggested. Since nearly every stab at liberalization the Turks have made in the past decade has been done solely as part of the goal of EU membership, shutting that door would likely cause the country to slide backward. Right now the Europeans are afraid Turkey’s 69 million Muslims might all suddenly flood their cities to take jobs as short-order cooks and subway token-takers; if they close the door on Turkey, though, they’ll probably find a lot of those 69 million Muslims blowing themselves up in the short order diners and subways in another ten years.
Aside from Jordan and Lebanon, which have questionable but semi-democratic governments and some limited personal freedoms, the rest of the Middle East isn’t getting out of the third world any time soon. This includes Iran, Azerbaijan, and Syria, the three other states in this group.
There are seven African third world states; aside from Mauritius, all other African states are considered failing. This is rather depressing. Even among the third world African states, things are not particularly sunny.
Ghana is just coming off spillover problems from the civil wars that have affected almost every country bordering it (the lone exception being dreadfully poor Burkina Faso, who’s people don’t have enough money to fight a civil war), and though it was once the shining light of West Africa it’s light has dimmed somewhat; it scores just 268 points, barely qualifying for the third world. The country’s government is stable, reasonably democratic and only moderately corrupt, and personal liberties are wide-ranging for Africa. However, literacy, life expectancy, and infant mortality are all significantly worse than the third world average. GDP growth is just barely keeping ahead of population growth (though that number has come down a great deal in the last few years). Surrounded by strife and poverty (and containing a fair bit of those itself), Ghana can either become an island of growth and stability or slip back to join its failing neighbors. Ghana is, thus, an example of a country that would very definitely deserve targeted official development aid, but we tend to send most of that aid to other countries in the region that are not equipped to make use of it.
Equatorial Guinea is not much better off than Ghana (scoring 294), but differs from Ghana in that it has a horribly repressive and corrupt despot at the head of its government and virtually no personal freedoms at all. The country stays afloat on the basis of its significant oil and natural gas wealth, but that money does not trickle down to the average Equatoguinean in the street. Official development aid that goes to EG tends to be pocketed by the government.
The remaining African third world states are Gabon, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, all of which are significantly richer than the other two. Gabon survives on oil wealth and appears rich only because it has such a small population; desperately needed government and economic reforms are probably decades away, after the passing of the country’s only president to date, Omar Bongo.
The other countries are part of the southern African cone of development, which used to include Zimbabwe until Robert Mugabe went insane and destroyed the place. Swaziland is firmly in the third world, but South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia are all rich, stable, democratic, and have good literacy rates and growing economies. However, these are among the countries worst hit by AIDS; Swaziland this year took from Botswana the dubious title of Country With The Highest Rate Of AIDS Infection; all but South Africa have rates over 30% (SA is slightly lower). The high rate of AIDS infection screws up most other population numbers: the median age in these countries is in the teens (which is common among failed states), and life expectancy numbers range from a high of 43.9 in Namibia to a low of 33.9 in Botswana.
It is these low numbers that keep these countries in the third world, but the numbers aren’t fully accurate. Residents of southern Africa who avoid the AIDS plague—and that’s about 2/3 of them—live well into their 60s and 70s. But many of those born with the disease—almost a fifth of live births in these countries—don’t reach adulthood, and those who do are nearly always orphaned by that time and cannot afford the drugs that will keep them alive much longer. Without question, AIDS is the single biggest problem in southern Africa, and in numerous other third world and failing states; no amount of development aid will correct this problem unless it is specifically targeted to AIDS prevention, but it rarely is.
Asia has 12 third world countries. As I mentioned yesterday, they run the gamut. The wealthiest by a wide margin is Kazakhstan, which has a vast territory, small population, and huge amount of natural gas. Whether the government will use that resource for good or ill is quite up in the air.
Next on the list in China, and below China are a number of countries that are several years away from scoring high enough to escape to third world, if any of them could do so even with the right score. Asia is not a continent with notably good government. The Phillippines have a democracy of sorts, but stability is not a concept frequently associated therewith. Sri Lanka has a strong democracy, but a seemingly intractable civil war. Papua New Guinea just concluded a civil war, but with a score of only 267 and virtually no GDP growth it’s hard to see what might spark the place to develop. Kyrgyzstan has recently overthrown their post-Soviet president/despot, but whether he’s merely to be replaced with another one or not remains to be seen.
In fact, only India meets the non-statistical requirements to escape the third world, and with a score of 305 (up from 255 five years ago), a rapidly expanding population, and one of the least even income distributions in Asia, India has a long way to go.
Other third world Asian countries of less distinction include Turkmenistan, Indonesia, Vietnam, Mongolia, and Uzbekistan. None of these are very happy places to live.
The Middle East has 13 countries in the third world. Two, Oman and Saudi Arabia, score high enough to escape the third world but… well, these are Saudi Arabia and Oman we’re talking about. Not exactly bastions of libertarianism. Of the oil sheikdoms of the Middle East, however, Oman is a special case; the Emir’s program of “Omanization” has reduced the number of third country workers to a very low level, guaranteeing most young Omanis a job and giving the place the feeling of a unique and special country. The other Gulf states are like the various suburbs of California: they all look about the same, and dark-skinned non-citizens do all the real work. Oman is different.
Aside from oil-rich Arabian states, there are oil-rich North African states. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and Morocco all live in the third world, with Egypt and Morocco at the bottom and Tunisia at the top. Tunisia has a semblance of democratic government, which is a nice feature, and the women aren’t covered in tablecloths all the time unless they want to be. The president of the country is not a good man, but he has succeeded in getting Tunisia favored status with the EU, lowering trade barriers, and he has also brought industries to Tunisia other than oil drilling and refining. Tunisia scores a 596; a few years of development under the EU trade regime and a multi-party election, and Tunisia will escape the third world.
Turkey might also escape some year soon, especially if the EU doesn’t refuse to open accession talks with the Turkish government later this year as numerous European politicians/idiots have suggested. Since nearly every stab at liberalization the Turks have made in the past decade has been done solely as part of the goal of EU membership, shutting that door would likely cause the country to slide backward. Right now the Europeans are afraid Turkey’s 69 million Muslims might all suddenly flood their cities to take jobs as short-order cooks and subway token-takers; if they close the door on Turkey, though, they’ll probably find a lot of those 69 million Muslims blowing themselves up in the short order diners and subways in another ten years.
Aside from Jordan and Lebanon, which have questionable but semi-democratic governments and some limited personal freedoms, the rest of the Middle East isn’t getting out of the third world any time soon. This includes Iran, Azerbaijan, and Syria, the three other states in this group.
07 August 2005
A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa
Yesterday I finished reading A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa, a book that was as informative as it was entertaining to watch people's expressions when they saw its title.
Yes, I chose to read this because I wanted to, not because I had some pressing reason to do so. Africa is a mess. The five former Portuguese (which is what Lusophone means, don't ask me why) colonies in Africa are particularly messy. Here is a book that purports to frame their particular messiness in terms of the colonial legacy and the post-colonial mistakes of their leaders. Lusophone African history is a microcosm of overall African history, and there just aren't many (any?) good African histories. Plus, having been rather smitten with Portugal on my sole trip to that country, I've become keenly interested in Portugal and its legacy.
The rest of the review is after the jump.
The book is divided into two sections and written by a team of six. The first section is written by Patrick Chabal, who has written a number of books on Angola. Angola thus figures fairly prominently in this section, which is a general overview of the history of the Portuguese colonies as a group--what they faced in common, what separated them, and why some succeeded while others failed. Of course, in a very real sense all of them have failed, so this degenerated into a discussion of why they each failed in different ways and at different speeds. Chabal is not a terribly exciting writer, but one needn't know very much about these countries or their history to understand what he's written.
The second section includes pieces on each of the five countries individually, each written by specialists on those countries (and edited by Mr. Chabal). The chapters on Angola and Mozambique--by far the most important and interesting of the five colonies--include much information already discussed in the earlier section, but both contain plenty of new information and are for the most part fairly easy to read, particularly the section on Mozambique.
By far the worst part of the book is the chapter on Guinea-Bissau. This is a shame since I've always felt that if I could become a third-world dictator, Guinea-Bissau is the country I should like to rule. The author, Joshua Forrest, is clearly of this group the one most tainted by academe; his writing is particularly illucid and much that might have been informative and interesting is buried under a layer of jargon. Additionally, the chapter's layout fails to use any even remotely chronological order, which makes it difficult to follow.
The two final chapters are somewhat shorter, being about particularly small and unimportant places (Cape Verde and Sao Tome e Principe). Both chapters are chock full of information you never knew existed about countries you may not have known existed. They are also among the best written parts of the book; I suppose specializing in a place like Sao Tome e Principe presents you with few enough opportunities to publish that you make sure what you do publish is very good.
Sadly, AHOPCLA was published in early 2002, and thus misses out on several frightfully important developments, notably the 2004 coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought former prime minister Kumba Yalla into the presidency, and the death lat er in 2002 of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi; Savimbi's death finally put an end to near 30 straight years of civil war.
Overall, however, there is no better book on the subject. There is essentially no other book on the subject, either. Should you ever have a yen to know more about obscure and destitute places, this is all the information you'd ever want to have.
Yes, I chose to read this because I wanted to, not because I had some pressing reason to do so. Africa is a mess. The five former Portuguese (which is what Lusophone means, don't ask me why) colonies in Africa are particularly messy. Here is a book that purports to frame their particular messiness in terms of the colonial legacy and the post-colonial mistakes of their leaders. Lusophone African history is a microcosm of overall African history, and there just aren't many (any?) good African histories. Plus, having been rather smitten with Portugal on my sole trip to that country, I've become keenly interested in Portugal and its legacy.The rest of the review is after the jump.
The book is divided into two sections and written by a team of six. The first section is written by Patrick Chabal, who has written a number of books on Angola. Angola thus figures fairly prominently in this section, which is a general overview of the history of the Portuguese colonies as a group--what they faced in common, what separated them, and why some succeeded while others failed. Of course, in a very real sense all of them have failed, so this degenerated into a discussion of why they each failed in different ways and at different speeds. Chabal is not a terribly exciting writer, but one needn't know very much about these countries or their history to understand what he's written.
The second section includes pieces on each of the five countries individually, each written by specialists on those countries (and edited by Mr. Chabal). The chapters on Angola and Mozambique--by far the most important and interesting of the five colonies--include much information already discussed in the earlier section, but both contain plenty of new information and are for the most part fairly easy to read, particularly the section on Mozambique.
By far the worst part of the book is the chapter on Guinea-Bissau. This is a shame since I've always felt that if I could become a third-world dictator, Guinea-Bissau is the country I should like to rule. The author, Joshua Forrest, is clearly of this group the one most tainted by academe; his writing is particularly illucid and much that might have been informative and interesting is buried under a layer of jargon. Additionally, the chapter's layout fails to use any even remotely chronological order, which makes it difficult to follow.
The two final chapters are somewhat shorter, being about particularly small and unimportant places (Cape Verde and Sao Tome e Principe). Both chapters are chock full of information you never knew existed about countries you may not have known existed. They are also among the best written parts of the book; I suppose specializing in a place like Sao Tome e Principe presents you with few enough opportunities to publish that you make sure what you do publish is very good.
Sadly, AHOPCLA was published in early 2002, and thus misses out on several frightfully important developments, notably the 2004 coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought former prime minister Kumba Yalla into the presidency, and the death lat er in 2002 of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi; Savimbi's death finally put an end to near 30 straight years of civil war.
Overall, however, there is no better book on the subject. There is essentially no other book on the subject, either. Should you ever have a yen to know more about obscure and destitute places, this is all the information you'd ever want to have.
A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa
Yesterday I finished reading A History of Post-Colonial Lusophone Africa, a book that was as informative as it was entertaining to watch people's expressions when they saw its title.
Yes, I chose to read this because I wanted to, not because I had some pressing reason to do so. Africa is a mess. The five former Portuguese (which is what Lusophone means, don't ask me why) colonies in Africa are particularly messy. Here is a book that purports to frame their particular messiness in terms of the colonial legacy and the post-colonial mistakes of their leaders. Lusophone African history is a microcosm of overall African history, and there just aren't many (any?) good African histories. Plus, having been rather smitten with Portugal on my sole trip to that country, I've become keenly interested in Portugal and its legacy.
The rest of the review is after the jump.
The book is divided into two sections and written by a team of six. The first section is written by Patrick Chabal, who has written a number of books on Angola. Angola thus figures fairly prominently in this section, which is a general overview of the history of the Portuguese colonies as a group--what they faced in common, what separated them, and why some succeeded while others failed. Of course, in a very real sense all of them have failed, so this degenerated into a discussion of why they each failed in different ways and at different speeds. Chabal is not a terribly exciting writer, but one needn't know very much about these countries or their history to understand what he's written.
The second section includes pieces on each of the five countries individually, each written by specialists on those countries (and edited by Mr. Chabal). The chapters on Angola and Mozambique--by far the most important and interesting of the five colonies--include much information already discussed in the earlier section, but both contain plenty of new information and are for the most part fairly easy to read, particularly the section on Mozambique.
By far the worst part of the book is the chapter on Guinea-Bissau. This is a shame since I've always felt that if I could become a third-world dictator, Guinea-Bissau is the country I should like to rule. The author, Joshua Forrest, is clearly of this group the one most tainted by academe; his writing is particularly illucid and much that might have been informative and interesting is buried under a layer of jargon. Additionally, the chapter's layout fails to use any even remotely chronological order, which makes it difficult to follow.
The two final chapters are somewhat shorter, being about particularly small and unimportant places (Cape Verde and Sao Tome e Principe). Both chapters are chock full of information you never knew existed about countries you may not have known existed. They are also among the best written parts of the book; I suppose specializing in a place like Sao Tome e Principe presents you with few enough opportunities to publish that you make sure what you do publish is very good.
Sadly, AHOPCLA was published in early 2002, and thus misses out on several frightfully important developments, notably the 2004 coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought former prime minister Kumba Yalla into the presidency, and the death lat er in 2002 of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi; Savimbi's death finally put an end to near 30 straight years of civil war.
Overall, however, there is no better book on the subject. There is essentially no other book on the subject, either. Should you ever have a yen to know more about obscure and destitute places, this is all the information you'd ever want to have.
Yes, I chose to read this because I wanted to, not because I had some pressing reason to do so. Africa is a mess. The five former Portuguese (which is what Lusophone means, don't ask me why) colonies in Africa are particularly messy. Here is a book that purports to frame their particular messiness in terms of the colonial legacy and the post-colonial mistakes of their leaders. Lusophone African history is a microcosm of overall African history, and there just aren't many (any?) good African histories. Plus, having been rather smitten with Portugal on my sole trip to that country, I've become keenly interested in Portugal and its legacy.The rest of the review is after the jump.
The book is divided into two sections and written by a team of six. The first section is written by Patrick Chabal, who has written a number of books on Angola. Angola thus figures fairly prominently in this section, which is a general overview of the history of the Portuguese colonies as a group--what they faced in common, what separated them, and why some succeeded while others failed. Of course, in a very real sense all of them have failed, so this degenerated into a discussion of why they each failed in different ways and at different speeds. Chabal is not a terribly exciting writer, but one needn't know very much about these countries or their history to understand what he's written.
The second section includes pieces on each of the five countries individually, each written by specialists on those countries (and edited by Mr. Chabal). The chapters on Angola and Mozambique--by far the most important and interesting of the five colonies--include much information already discussed in the earlier section, but both contain plenty of new information and are for the most part fairly easy to read, particularly the section on Mozambique.
By far the worst part of the book is the chapter on Guinea-Bissau. This is a shame since I've always felt that if I could become a third-world dictator, Guinea-Bissau is the country I should like to rule. The author, Joshua Forrest, is clearly of this group the one most tainted by academe; his writing is particularly illucid and much that might have been informative and interesting is buried under a layer of jargon. Additionally, the chapter's layout fails to use any even remotely chronological order, which makes it difficult to follow.
The two final chapters are somewhat shorter, being about particularly small and unimportant places (Cape Verde and Sao Tome e Principe). Both chapters are chock full of information you never knew existed about countries you may not have known existed. They are also among the best written parts of the book; I suppose specializing in a place like Sao Tome e Principe presents you with few enough opportunities to publish that you make sure what you do publish is very good.
Sadly, AHOPCLA was published in early 2002, and thus misses out on several frightfully important developments, notably the 2004 coup d'etat in Guinea-Bissau that brought former prime minister Kumba Yalla into the presidency, and the death lat er in 2002 of Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi; Savimbi's death finally put an end to near 30 straight years of civil war.
Overall, however, there is no better book on the subject. There is essentially no other book on the subject, either. Should you ever have a yen to know more about obscure and destitute places, this is all the information you'd ever want to have.
The Annual Country Rankings! Part III
The Third World.
It conjures up all sorts of horrible images. Most of us tend to think of the Third World as being places like, well, Niger. Places with horrible illiteracy, crushing poverty, an utter lack of health care, and where famine, plague, and civil war reign.
These places are of course among the Failed States. Third World countries, then, are what failed states aspire to become. Some of them may do so someday.
The rest follows the jump.
This is not to say the third world is a happy place full of smiling, healthy children happily going to school to become the next South Korea or Taiwan. Not at all. In the third world, literacy rates are better, health care is at least extant if not of high quality, generally more than half the people in the country have access to drinkable water (not a guarantee in failed states; think about that. How would your life be different if you had no access to drinkable water and no money to buy bottled water? What would you do? That’s a daily consideration for people living in places like Cape Verde and Malawi), the infant mortality rate is usually at least not appalling (if not very good), and most people make enough money every year to afford the basic necessities of life.
One of the key differences between the third world and the failed states is that, in the third world, as a rule less than half the population are engaged in subsistence agriculture. This is never the case in failed states. As an example, in Burkina Faso over 85% of the population do not go to work in the morning. Far from being unemployed, these people are engaged every day in trying to grow or steal enough food to feed their families. This is not far removed from being a hunter-gatherer. In such a situation, it’s easy to understand why these states can be considered failing. Whether you tend toward Hobbes or Rousseau, you must admit there is no situation under which rational sovereigns would consent to live under a government where you must spend all of every day looking for food, but still have to pay taxes.
Things in the third world are, in comparison then, better. The third world is a big place, with 76 states. It is also a varied place: there are monied dictatorships like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; liberty-free theocracies like Iran; stable developing democracies like India; communist-and-loving-it economic growth machines like China and Vietnam; and barely-out-of-the-woods countries struggling to provide for their people, like Papua New Guinea. And that’s just in Asia; the third world spans every continent.
Unlike with the failed states, the vast majority (about 80%) of third world states get better year to year. There are always a handful of states that do not; some third world states occasionally drop into the failed area during major crises, and may or may not recover. Cote d’Ivoire (known to most people as Ivory Coast) is one of these that has not recovered; the Solomon Islands, however, did recover.
At the top of the third world are a handful of democracies with developing modern economies; these include places like Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, and South Africa. Each high-ranking third world state generally has just a handful of problems keeping them from escaping the third world—in Brazil’s case, unemployment and infant mortality; in South Africa’s, a truly dreadful life expectancy in the low 40’s. Some of these problems are more easily fixed than others, and Brazil certainly will escape the third world long before South Africa—or any African state—does so.
At the bottom of the third world, however, are countries that are constantly in danger of failing, countries like Papua New Guinea, Ghana, and Nicaragua. In fact, given that these places tend to look, statistically, more like failed states than their richer more stable cousins, I might consider raising the bar for third-world membership. But doing so would kick 7 countries out of the third world, so there would be 69 third world countries and 64 failed states… and being an optimist I’d rather there be a wider gap between those numbers. We’ll see how that plays out over the next year or two; I make frequent changes to the system so this one may be in the offing.
More on the third world tomorrow.
It conjures up all sorts of horrible images. Most of us tend to think of the Third World as being places like, well, Niger. Places with horrible illiteracy, crushing poverty, an utter lack of health care, and where famine, plague, and civil war reign.
These places are of course among the Failed States. Third World countries, then, are what failed states aspire to become. Some of them may do so someday.
The rest follows the jump.
This is not to say the third world is a happy place full of smiling, healthy children happily going to school to become the next South Korea or Taiwan. Not at all. In the third world, literacy rates are better, health care is at least extant if not of high quality, generally more than half the people in the country have access to drinkable water (not a guarantee in failed states; think about that. How would your life be different if you had no access to drinkable water and no money to buy bottled water? What would you do? That’s a daily consideration for people living in places like Cape Verde and Malawi), the infant mortality rate is usually at least not appalling (if not very good), and most people make enough money every year to afford the basic necessities of life.
One of the key differences between the third world and the failed states is that, in the third world, as a rule less than half the population are engaged in subsistence agriculture. This is never the case in failed states. As an example, in Burkina Faso over 85% of the population do not go to work in the morning. Far from being unemployed, these people are engaged every day in trying to grow or steal enough food to feed their families. This is not far removed from being a hunter-gatherer. In such a situation, it’s easy to understand why these states can be considered failing. Whether you tend toward Hobbes or Rousseau, you must admit there is no situation under which rational sovereigns would consent to live under a government where you must spend all of every day looking for food, but still have to pay taxes.
Things in the third world are, in comparison then, better. The third world is a big place, with 76 states. It is also a varied place: there are monied dictatorships like Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan; liberty-free theocracies like Iran; stable developing democracies like India; communist-and-loving-it economic growth machines like China and Vietnam; and barely-out-of-the-woods countries struggling to provide for their people, like Papua New Guinea. And that’s just in Asia; the third world spans every continent.
Unlike with the failed states, the vast majority (about 80%) of third world states get better year to year. There are always a handful of states that do not; some third world states occasionally drop into the failed area during major crises, and may or may not recover. Cote d’Ivoire (known to most people as Ivory Coast) is one of these that has not recovered; the Solomon Islands, however, did recover.
At the top of the third world are a handful of democracies with developing modern economies; these include places like Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, and South Africa. Each high-ranking third world state generally has just a handful of problems keeping them from escaping the third world—in Brazil’s case, unemployment and infant mortality; in South Africa’s, a truly dreadful life expectancy in the low 40’s. Some of these problems are more easily fixed than others, and Brazil certainly will escape the third world long before South Africa—or any African state—does so.
At the bottom of the third world, however, are countries that are constantly in danger of failing, countries like Papua New Guinea, Ghana, and Nicaragua. In fact, given that these places tend to look, statistically, more like failed states than their richer more stable cousins, I might consider raising the bar for third-world membership. But doing so would kick 7 countries out of the third world, so there would be 69 third world countries and 64 failed states… and being an optimist I’d rather there be a wider gap between those numbers. We’ll see how that plays out over the next year or two; I make frequent changes to the system so this one may be in the offing.
More on the third world tomorrow.
Sunday Thoughts
1. I just noticed that the instructions under the lid of my washing machine include the following statement, in English:
For instructions in French, see owner’s manual.
So if you speak French, you have to also speak English to find the instructions. And if you speak English, why do you need the French instructions in the first place? Ah, the mysteries of Whirlpool.
2. The sermon in church this morning was very good, given by Michael Precht, who is in only his first year of seminary at Duke. He came to Hyde Park this summer as an intern and is thus far with my erratic attendance the only pastor I’ve heard preach at the church. This was his last Sunday with us; I will greatly miss him. He’s the sort of pastor who, if he came back to the Tampa area after his ordination, even if he joined a church a long distance away, I’d join that church immediately. Today he spoke about living in celebration.
This may turn into a long piece, or it may not; either way, the rest is after the jump.
The Old Testament lesson was a story about David, and how the mighty king danced like a fool upon bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. His wife nagged him for acting like a fool in front of the whole kingdom. David pointed out that the commoners would see how God’s love made David so happy he was willing to dance like a fool, and they will want the same thing for themselves.
How perfect.
I can paraphrase bits of the sermon, but don’t ascribe anything extremely silly I may say to Mr. Precht.
From the inside looking out, it sometimes seems to me like Christians are not often perceived as filled with the ecstasy of God’s love. You see a lot of Christians filled with the letter of the law, but not with much else. We are seen as disciplinarians, as meddlesome moralists who are only interested in forcing others to conform to our views.
I saw a sign on the highway a couple months ago during the Quran flushing controversy that is illustrative here. It said something along the lines of "Flushing the Koran is an act of love."
Aside from the low intelligence level demonstrated by that statement, what about it would bring anyone anywhere to Christ? Anything at all? Is there love in that statement, the kind of love anyone would want?
I'm not saying being a Christian is all milk and honey. Obedience to God's will is hard, turning the other cheek is hard, loving your neighbor is hard. I have plenty of trouble with all of these. Given these facts, is the promise of eternal bliss in heaven enough to bring a worldly person to Christ? I don't think so.
It occurs to me that of course a Christian is charged with bringing others to Christ. If you enjoy being a Christian, and revel in God's love and forgiveness, why not point that out? Why not live in celebration of God's love, instead of in fear of it?
I am always deeply curious about the sales effort for Christianity; our marketing seems pretty bad to me, and yet we've got such a great product. On the one hand you have people shouting about obedience to God's will and giving yourself completely to Christ, and how that's a constant struggle. Hmm. That's a product I'm certainly keen to buy. Aren't you? Would you buy a washing machine that you had to reassemble yourself every time you wanted to use it and might not get your clothes clean anyway? I doubt it.
Then there's the wonderful public face exemplified by many evangelicals, who shout at you about going to hell and tell you everything you're doing wrong. They don't seem to be very happy people, many of them; they look rather like some frigid martinet bent on sapping every ounce of joy from your life. Hey! Let's go and join those guys! That looks cool! Yeah, sure.
Considering the text of the reading this morning, let's also think about those Christians who frown on everything they can possibly think of: drinking, smoking, staying out late, getting tattoos, wearing revealing bathing suits, spending time out doors, playing sports, making friends with non-Christians...dancing. Once again, these seem like such a fun group of people it's hard to see why we haven't all joined up.
These Christians are David's wife (Michal I think was her name; daughter of Saul). The sermon this morning asked us to be more like David. Dance! Sing! Be a little silly, and have a good time. People will see that you are happy--and why are you happy? Because you're saved! You have God's light in your life every day, and you know things are only going to get better in heaven. Why wouldn't you be happy? And why wouldn't other people want to catch what you've got?
I read an interesting tidbit on a tattoo faq website, about whether tattoos were banned by the Bible. The answer (as you'd expect) was no; the tattooing of images of God or the name of God on your body was specifically banned as blasphemous, but in fact tattooing was common practice among all early civilizations (hence the need to tell the Israelites not to tattoo "Yahweh" on their arm, lest they lose sight of the real Yahweh).
The argument put forth was that anything that separates you from God is a sin. Tattooing itself is not inherently bad, but if tattooing (or dancing or anything else) will take your eyes off of God, then in that case of course it's a sin. The Christians who want to ban everything that might be fun seem to think that anything fun will take their eyes off of God and make them worldly sinners. Why? Is their faith so weak? I should hope not; anyone with the faith to put up with being a Primitive Baptist probably won't be swayed from God by much short of Satan offering them the world.
I think if I could boil down today's message, it was this. In everything, glorify God. In glorifying God, have a good time. If your relationship with God makes you happy (and why wouldn't it?), then be happy, and show other people. Mean, bossy, or miserable Christians do not with other souls for Christ. Being the light of the world is less about telling other people what to do than about showing them why they should want to do it.
And Amen to that.
For instructions in French, see owner’s manual.
So if you speak French, you have to also speak English to find the instructions. And if you speak English, why do you need the French instructions in the first place? Ah, the mysteries of Whirlpool.
2. The sermon in church this morning was very good, given by Michael Precht, who is in only his first year of seminary at Duke. He came to Hyde Park this summer as an intern and is thus far with my erratic attendance the only pastor I’ve heard preach at the church. This was his last Sunday with us; I will greatly miss him. He’s the sort of pastor who, if he came back to the Tampa area after his ordination, even if he joined a church a long distance away, I’d join that church immediately. Today he spoke about living in celebration.
This may turn into a long piece, or it may not; either way, the rest is after the jump.
The Old Testament lesson was a story about David, and how the mighty king danced like a fool upon bringing the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. His wife nagged him for acting like a fool in front of the whole kingdom. David pointed out that the commoners would see how God’s love made David so happy he was willing to dance like a fool, and they will want the same thing for themselves.
How perfect.
I can paraphrase bits of the sermon, but don’t ascribe anything extremely silly I may say to Mr. Precht.
From the inside looking out, it sometimes seems to me like Christians are not often perceived as filled with the ecstasy of God’s love. You see a lot of Christians filled with the letter of the law, but not with much else. We are seen as disciplinarians, as meddlesome moralists who are only interested in forcing others to conform to our views.
I saw a sign on the highway a couple months ago during the Quran flushing controversy that is illustrative here. It said something along the lines of "Flushing the Koran is an act of love."
Aside from the low intelligence level demonstrated by that statement, what about it would bring anyone anywhere to Christ? Anything at all? Is there love in that statement, the kind of love anyone would want?
I'm not saying being a Christian is all milk and honey. Obedience to God's will is hard, turning the other cheek is hard, loving your neighbor is hard. I have plenty of trouble with all of these. Given these facts, is the promise of eternal bliss in heaven enough to bring a worldly person to Christ? I don't think so.
It occurs to me that of course a Christian is charged with bringing others to Christ. If you enjoy being a Christian, and revel in God's love and forgiveness, why not point that out? Why not live in celebration of God's love, instead of in fear of it?
I am always deeply curious about the sales effort for Christianity; our marketing seems pretty bad to me, and yet we've got such a great product. On the one hand you have people shouting about obedience to God's will and giving yourself completely to Christ, and how that's a constant struggle. Hmm. That's a product I'm certainly keen to buy. Aren't you? Would you buy a washing machine that you had to reassemble yourself every time you wanted to use it and might not get your clothes clean anyway? I doubt it.
Then there's the wonderful public face exemplified by many evangelicals, who shout at you about going to hell and tell you everything you're doing wrong. They don't seem to be very happy people, many of them; they look rather like some frigid martinet bent on sapping every ounce of joy from your life. Hey! Let's go and join those guys! That looks cool! Yeah, sure.
Considering the text of the reading this morning, let's also think about those Christians who frown on everything they can possibly think of: drinking, smoking, staying out late, getting tattoos, wearing revealing bathing suits, spending time out doors, playing sports, making friends with non-Christians...dancing. Once again, these seem like such a fun group of people it's hard to see why we haven't all joined up.
These Christians are David's wife (Michal I think was her name; daughter of Saul). The sermon this morning asked us to be more like David. Dance! Sing! Be a little silly, and have a good time. People will see that you are happy--and why are you happy? Because you're saved! You have God's light in your life every day, and you know things are only going to get better in heaven. Why wouldn't you be happy? And why wouldn't other people want to catch what you've got?
I read an interesting tidbit on a tattoo faq website, about whether tattoos were banned by the Bible. The answer (as you'd expect) was no; the tattooing of images of God or the name of God on your body was specifically banned as blasphemous, but in fact tattooing was common practice among all early civilizations (hence the need to tell the Israelites not to tattoo "Yahweh" on their arm, lest they lose sight of the real Yahweh).
The argument put forth was that anything that separates you from God is a sin. Tattooing itself is not inherently bad, but if tattooing (or dancing or anything else) will take your eyes off of God, then in that case of course it's a sin. The Christians who want to ban everything that might be fun seem to think that anything fun will take their eyes off of God and make them worldly sinners. Why? Is their faith so weak? I should hope not; anyone with the faith to put up with being a Primitive Baptist probably won't be swayed from God by much short of Satan offering them the world.
I think if I could boil down today's message, it was this. In everything, glorify God. In glorifying God, have a good time. If your relationship with God makes you happy (and why wouldn't it?), then be happy, and show other people. Mean, bossy, or miserable Christians do not with other souls for Christ. Being the light of the world is less about telling other people what to do than about showing them why they should want to do it.
And Amen to that.
04 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part II
So, I thought I'd start with the worst places. Start at the bottom and move up, right?
For the first time in six years, the four most unpleasant places in the world have not changed at all. That's probably not a good sign for those places.
Afghanistan tops (or bottoms?) the list. Only 36% of people can read or write, and 60% of people are unemployed--which may be a generous estimate.
Not far behind is Sierra Leone, by the CIA's estimate the second poorest country on Earth--and with one of the most unequal income distributions as well. Of course, the country is so poor that even the very wealthy would be destitute by American standards, and the very poor...well, the very poor aren't living at all. Sierra Leone also has the highest death rate in the world.
Niger has been in the news lately, and we should hope it remains there since as soon as Niger drops out of the news people will stop donating aid there. Niger has for several years had the worst literacy rate in the world; less than 18% of Nigerans can read or write.
Rounding out the bottom four is Somalia, which has no functioning government. Little more needs to said. Somalia is not a place in any traditional sense. It is the lack of one.
Liberia is a new entrant in the bottom five, although it has one of the highest economic growth rates among the failed states.
Rounding out the bottom ten are Angola (where 191 out of every 1000 babies die in their first year), Guinea-Bissau (where the only commercial product is cashews, of which the country is only the 6th largest producer), Malawi (where the life expectancy is only 37), Burkina Faso (26% literacy), and Mali (just generally bad).
Other notably unpleasant places include East Timor, which is the CIA's pick for poorest country in the world, and Zimbabwe, where nearly everyone not employed by the government is, well, not employed. Zimbabwe, once one of bright lights of Africa, has over the past two or three years provided a perfect example of how one person can destroy an entire country. Robert Mugabe could write an instructional book on how to do so.
More news after the jump, including the surprising failed states that are actually getting better.
The thing that most failed states have in common is that, year to year, they get worse. At least in terms of their "score," which is a number I come up with based on a variety of factors, including infant mortality, life expectancy, GDP per capita, unemployment, literacy, and a few more esoteric items like income distribution and the Freedom Foundation's ratings of the country's personal and press freedoms. Of the 57 states that are listed as failing this year, 7 of them broke this trend.
Nepal managed to raise its score a whopping one point over five years. That's statistically insignificant, of course, but that the place has not gotten worse after five years of drought and a bloody Maoist insurrection is pretty impressive. (For an idea of points, Afghanistan scored one point this year. Luxembourg, the top scorer, came in at 2105. Any state scoring under 250 drops into the "failed" category.)
Laos is up all of four points. Again, not significant, but the generals who run the place are starting to figure out that what Vietnam is doing is working, and what Burma is doing is not, and they're following Vietnam's lead. Good for them.
Uganda is up 13 points. And in the past year President Museveni has opened up the press and allowed other political parties to form without automatically imprisoning or killing their leaders, so things are looking up.
Rwanda, up 15 points, is perhaps the biggest surprise here. Maybe people have heard about that Hotel Rwanda movie and, without actually seeing the film, have assumed Rwanda must be a great place to visit. Tourism supports lots of world economies, maybe Rwanda is next.
Chad, which I discussed in an earlier post, is up 19 points. With the opening of new oil and gas fields, perhaps this trend will continue or accelerate. Let's all root for Chad!
Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean, is up 45 points. This is the country that has been selling its internet domain (.tv) to bring in extra cash. With only 11,000 people, they're probably not going to run out domain names any time soon, so the cash cow should be around for a while. This is a country that consists of 9 tiny coral atolls, spread over a chunk of ocean the size of the American Southwest. The highest point in the country is about 17 feet above sea level. Tuvalu joined the UN only in the last 15 years, solely to voice concern over what could happen to the country if global warming results in sea level rise.
Sudan is up 50 points. I have doubts about this. The rise in violence and famine over the last few years has been pretty awful. But the money has been rolling in from new oil development, and as long as that continues, the government has no really need (or desire, anyway) to solve the more pressing problems in Darfur and the south.
Cambodia is up a whopping 118 points, albeit from a very low starting point.
For the first time in six years, the four most unpleasant places in the world have not changed at all. That's probably not a good sign for those places.
Afghanistan tops (or bottoms?) the list. Only 36% of people can read or write, and 60% of people are unemployed--which may be a generous estimate.
Not far behind is Sierra Leone, by the CIA's estimate the second poorest country on Earth--and with one of the most unequal income distributions as well. Of course, the country is so poor that even the very wealthy would be destitute by American standards, and the very poor...well, the very poor aren't living at all. Sierra Leone also has the highest death rate in the world.
Niger has been in the news lately, and we should hope it remains there since as soon as Niger drops out of the news people will stop donating aid there. Niger has for several years had the worst literacy rate in the world; less than 18% of Nigerans can read or write.
Rounding out the bottom four is Somalia, which has no functioning government. Little more needs to said. Somalia is not a place in any traditional sense. It is the lack of one.
Liberia is a new entrant in the bottom five, although it has one of the highest economic growth rates among the failed states.
Rounding out the bottom ten are Angola (where 191 out of every 1000 babies die in their first year), Guinea-Bissau (where the only commercial product is cashews, of which the country is only the 6th largest producer), Malawi (where the life expectancy is only 37), Burkina Faso (26% literacy), and Mali (just generally bad).
Other notably unpleasant places include East Timor, which is the CIA's pick for poorest country in the world, and Zimbabwe, where nearly everyone not employed by the government is, well, not employed. Zimbabwe, once one of bright lights of Africa, has over the past two or three years provided a perfect example of how one person can destroy an entire country. Robert Mugabe could write an instructional book on how to do so.
More news after the jump, including the surprising failed states that are actually getting better.
The thing that most failed states have in common is that, year to year, they get worse. At least in terms of their "score," which is a number I come up with based on a variety of factors, including infant mortality, life expectancy, GDP per capita, unemployment, literacy, and a few more esoteric items like income distribution and the Freedom Foundation's ratings of the country's personal and press freedoms. Of the 57 states that are listed as failing this year, 7 of them broke this trend.
Nepal managed to raise its score a whopping one point over five years. That's statistically insignificant, of course, but that the place has not gotten worse after five years of drought and a bloody Maoist insurrection is pretty impressive. (For an idea of points, Afghanistan scored one point this year. Luxembourg, the top scorer, came in at 2105. Any state scoring under 250 drops into the "failed" category.)
Laos is up all of four points. Again, not significant, but the generals who run the place are starting to figure out that what Vietnam is doing is working, and what Burma is doing is not, and they're following Vietnam's lead. Good for them.
Uganda is up 13 points. And in the past year President Museveni has opened up the press and allowed other political parties to form without automatically imprisoning or killing their leaders, so things are looking up.
Rwanda, up 15 points, is perhaps the biggest surprise here. Maybe people have heard about that Hotel Rwanda movie and, without actually seeing the film, have assumed Rwanda must be a great place to visit. Tourism supports lots of world economies, maybe Rwanda is next.
Chad, which I discussed in an earlier post, is up 19 points. With the opening of new oil and gas fields, perhaps this trend will continue or accelerate. Let's all root for Chad!
Tuvalu, a tiny island nation in the Pacific Ocean, is up 45 points. This is the country that has been selling its internet domain (.tv) to bring in extra cash. With only 11,000 people, they're probably not going to run out domain names any time soon, so the cash cow should be around for a while. This is a country that consists of 9 tiny coral atolls, spread over a chunk of ocean the size of the American Southwest. The highest point in the country is about 17 feet above sea level. Tuvalu joined the UN only in the last 15 years, solely to voice concern over what could happen to the country if global warming results in sea level rise.
Sudan is up 50 points. I have doubts about this. The rise in violence and famine over the last few years has been pretty awful. But the money has been rolling in from new oil development, and as long as that continues, the government has no really need (or desire, anyway) to solve the more pressing problems in Darfur and the south.
Cambodia is up a whopping 118 points, albeit from a very low starting point.
03 August 2005
The Annual Country Rankings! Part I
Being a dork, I eagerly await the annual update to the CIA World Factbook. I eagerly await it so that I can update my yearly rankings of national political and economic malfeasance (and, um, feasance, I suppose) around the world.
Several years ago (it was 1999, actually, but the factbook was late that year so I started with the 1998 Factbook) I read a book entitled "The Real World Order" by Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky. The book put forth a few interesting ideas, among them the idea that the world was really divided into two overarching "zones," the Zone of Peace, and the Zone of Turmoil.
Singer and Wildavsky argued that countries in the Zone of Peace would not wage war against other countries in the Zone of Peace under any normal circumstance. Obviously based on the name the same could not be said for the Zone of Turmoil.
I liked the idea. Standing alone, however, it isn't terribly useful, and Singer and Wildavsky did not develop it enough to make it into a policy tool, nor did they discuss what exactly the Zone of Peace might consist of. I was dissatisfied. So I went about creating a method of defining what countries might be in the Zone of Peace. This worked well, but I soon realized that some countries in the Zone of Turmoil were very different from other countries in the Zone of Turmoil. There were some that were likely to break into the Zone of Peace, and others that, frankly, were never going to do so. It seemed there should be a better way to categorize things.
So I developed a Zone of Transition. I also over time fell into using First World, Third World, and Transitional States rather than the "Zone" monikers, which weren't mine to start with and which with repetition start to sound hackneyed. In recent years, I've also determined that the countries at the bottom of the Third World did not ever seem to improve their scores from year to year, and for the most part were on a steep downward trend. These are states that, from my point of view, have failed their customers (their citizens) so utterly that they cannot rationally be considered states at all. Policymakers like to use the term "Failed States" for such places, so I've picked that up as well.
So anyway, the last few weeks I've been putting numbers in my little spreadsheet to see how the family of nations are doing this year, at least in the eyes of the CIA. I'm happy to report that for the first time since 2001, two new states have broken into the First World. Hooray! Two other states have returned to transitional status, from which they were delisted two years ago when I tightened the requirements for First World and Transitional status. It's good to have them back. And two states have escaped from Failed status; both were once in the third world but suffered a series of coup attempts and civil wars and, well, you get the idea.
Aside from a few disappointing results from countries I expected to move up (Cape Verde, Chile, Dominica), this was a satisfying year for most places outside the failed states.
I bet you want to know which countries are where, huh?
Well, I'll be covering that over the next few days. Hey, there's nothing in the news right now I even want to think about, much less write about (until Discovery comes home safely), so this will keep us all amused and interested for a few days. Right? Right.
Several years ago (it was 1999, actually, but the factbook was late that year so I started with the 1998 Factbook) I read a book entitled "The Real World Order" by Max Singer and Aaron Wildavsky. The book put forth a few interesting ideas, among them the idea that the world was really divided into two overarching "zones," the Zone of Peace, and the Zone of Turmoil.
Singer and Wildavsky argued that countries in the Zone of Peace would not wage war against other countries in the Zone of Peace under any normal circumstance. Obviously based on the name the same could not be said for the Zone of Turmoil.
I liked the idea. Standing alone, however, it isn't terribly useful, and Singer and Wildavsky did not develop it enough to make it into a policy tool, nor did they discuss what exactly the Zone of Peace might consist of. I was dissatisfied. So I went about creating a method of defining what countries might be in the Zone of Peace. This worked well, but I soon realized that some countries in the Zone of Turmoil were very different from other countries in the Zone of Turmoil. There were some that were likely to break into the Zone of Peace, and others that, frankly, were never going to do so. It seemed there should be a better way to categorize things.
So I developed a Zone of Transition. I also over time fell into using First World, Third World, and Transitional States rather than the "Zone" monikers, which weren't mine to start with and which with repetition start to sound hackneyed. In recent years, I've also determined that the countries at the bottom of the Third World did not ever seem to improve their scores from year to year, and for the most part were on a steep downward trend. These are states that, from my point of view, have failed their customers (their citizens) so utterly that they cannot rationally be considered states at all. Policymakers like to use the term "Failed States" for such places, so I've picked that up as well.
So anyway, the last few weeks I've been putting numbers in my little spreadsheet to see how the family of nations are doing this year, at least in the eyes of the CIA. I'm happy to report that for the first time since 2001, two new states have broken into the First World. Hooray! Two other states have returned to transitional status, from which they were delisted two years ago when I tightened the requirements for First World and Transitional status. It's good to have them back. And two states have escaped from Failed status; both were once in the third world but suffered a series of coup attempts and civil wars and, well, you get the idea.
Aside from a few disappointing results from countries I expected to move up (Cape Verde, Chile, Dominica), this was a satisfying year for most places outside the failed states.
I bet you want to know which countries are where, huh?
Well, I'll be covering that over the next few days. Hey, there's nothing in the news right now I even want to think about, much less write about (until Discovery comes home safely), so this will keep us all amused and interested for a few days. Right? Right.
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