Israel ranks high among the world’s most powerful countries, according to a new study measuring “a nation’s worth beyond hard metrics”. The 2016 Best Countries report, which looked at countries’ rankings in nine areas, identified Israel as the eighth most powerful nation of 60 examined.
According to US News, which published the results, “The 2016 Best Countries report and rankings are based on how global perceptions define countries in terms of a number of qualitative characteristics, impressions that have the potential to drive trade, travel and investment and directly affect national economies.”
The nine subcategories included in the study were adventure, citizenship, cultural influence, entrepreneurship, heritage, movers, open for business, power and quality of life. In the power category, defined as being “a leader, economically influential, politically influential, strong international alliances, strong military,” Israel placed behind US, Russia, China, Germany, the UK, France and Japan, but ahead of many others, including Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Canada, Iran, Australia, India, Italy and Pakistan.
The study was designed by John Gerzema and Anna Blender from UK-based public relations company WPP’s brand strategy firm BAV Consulting and David Reibstein from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, in consultation with U.S. News & World Report. It included a survey of 16,000 people worldwide asking how closely they associated 65 different attributes with the 60 countries on the list. The attributes were then sorted by related category. The more closely a country was associated by more people with a certain attribute, the higher that country rose in the rankings.
The sixty countries included in the study were those which reached all four of the following benchmarks: the United Nation’s top 100 countries in terms of 2013 gross domestic product, the World Bank’s top 100 countries in terms of 2012 international tourist arrivals, the top 100 countries in terms of foreign direct investment inflows from the United Nation’s 2013 World Investment Report and the top 150 countries of the United Nation’s 2014 Human Development Index.
The final ranking of Best Country took all nine subcategories into account. Germany took top spot, followed by Canada, the UK. and the US. Israel placed 25th overall.