Compared to 2019, more people in this year's Best Countries report say that the global economy is in decline, that nationalism is on the rise and that the gap between the rich and the poor is growing. Those sentiments are part of a larger narrative in which political scientists say worries are growing over an increasingly unstable world. Last week, the Eurasia Group rated this year's
U.S. presidential election as the world's top risk.
In Asia, concerns are growing of an increasingly institutionalized Cold War between the U.S. and China, says Zhang Baohui, professor of political science and director of the Centre for Asian-Pacific Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. "Hot spots like the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea would be more likely to trigger military conflicts between the two countries," Zhang said by email.
In Europe, the public mood is increasingly anxious about climate change, employment and migration, says Karel Lannoo, CEO of the Centre for European Policy Studies, a nonpartisan think tank based in Brussels. But larger worries are whether countries can work together to preserve geopolitical stability, Lannoo says.
"Compare the mood around the world today, compare this to 30 years ago, right after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a very hopeful world; we are at the end of that cycle. It is a less free world, with more illiberal democracies."
The Best Countries report and subsequent rankings are based on how people's perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics. The 2020 report focuses on global perceptions of 73 nations.
The rankings are formed in partnership between U.S. News & World Report, BAV Group (a unit of global marketing communications company VMLY&R) and the
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. The rankings include 65 metrics.
The survey's results show respondents reward stability, transparency and equality, say analysts. Switzerland and Canada rank second and third, respectively, as the best countries to conduct business, trailing only Luxembourg. The U.S., by contrast, ranks 45th among the 73 countries assessed in that category.
