Failed States Ranked by Foreign Policy magazine

Back in the day when I worked Political Risk country profiles in the Amoco Corp's Corporate Planning area, the Economist Intelligence Unit country analyses were the ne plus ultra on an individual country analysis basis. Foreign Policy magazine has a comparative basis in its latest issue.

I can always recall that Algeria and Morocco back then had comparative populations and also comparative GDP and annual income numbers, even though Algeria was an oil state. This could be another indication that oil and gas reserves are a curse as well as a blessing for the country's inhabitants.

Sudan is the worst ranked on the list, with two separate civil wars in various regions of this vast country. Go on to the corruption index page and New Zealand is the least corrupt. The US is less corrupt than France, but moreso than the UK and Germany.

The entire list makes fascinating reading, as does the methodological background.