I Love Lists: A Foreign Policy Roundup

I usually only check my hotmail account about once per month because I don't get personal emails there any more. I do, however, get newsletters form different organizations and institutions. Among these institutions are: Oxfam, the National Peace Corps Association, the campaign against SOA/WHINSEC, and Foreign Policy Magazine.

I'll usually skim through anything as fast as I can, sign whatever petitions appear to be worthy and then head back to gmail. I'd be able to do this in about 30 minutes per month if I didn't get sidetracked. But I always get sidetracked. Why? The lists in Foreign Policy Magazine.

I'm a big fan of lists. When I was a kid I used to absorb lists of things like the top ten largest cities or states, or the ten tallest mountains or deepest seas in the world. I think I liked how an entire seemingly unmanageable field of study or inquiry could be consolidated into one little pocket size list of notable "bests" or "biggests." In case your curious, the top ten largest cities in the U.S. according to WatchMojo.com are: NYC, L.A., Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, Dallas, San Antonio, and Detroit.

The most recent Foreign Policy list came out a few weeks ago, but I figured I'd post it because it seemed pretty interesting.

It's called the Globalization Index, and ranks the countries of the world by the extent to which they are globally integrated. The index incorporates indicators such as trade, foreign direct investment, participation in international organizations, travel, and Internet usage to determine rankings of countries around the world.

If you want to see the feature article full with cool graphs, formulas, and explanations, click here. Otherwise, here's the executive summary:

1. Singapore (#1 4 of the last 7 years. Not too bad for a city/country hybrid)
2. Hong Kong
3. The Netherlands
4. Switzerland
5. Ireland
6. Denmark
7. United States
8. Canada
9. Jordan (apparently donate a lot to peacekeeping missions)
10. Estonia (dubbed E-stonia for commitment to internet commerce)

If you search around a little bit you can find all sorts of other cool lists like:

1. "Five countries that are building up their military" (China, U.S., South Africa, Venezuela, India), or

2. "Five of the most eligible world leaders" (Can you guess the American on this list? I'll give you a hint, it rhymes with Rondeleeza Brice), or

3. "The five healthiest countries." This list had cool little factoids about each country:

1. Japan (women longest living people on earth)
2. France (wine makes for less heart attacks)
3. Iceland (lowest child mortality rate on planet)
4. Sweden (14 % of govt. spending to health care)
5. Cuba (more doctors per capita than any other country)

Here's the page where all of this wacky lists are archived if you'd like to check out more.

I should really be studying for finals right now.