Rating the Nations

A World Bank study gives Iraq a zero for political stability, but the United States isn't where you might expect.

"GOVERNANCE" is the hot concept in international development. Not surprisingly, research shows that countries with honest, effective and democratic governments tend to have faster economic growth than those with corrupt dictatorships. To maximize the results of their aid, development agencies, including the World Bank, want to steer the aid toward countries with good governance. But how to measure governmental quality? A new World Bank Institute report, "Governance Matters," supplies governance scores for 212 countries, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe.

Countries that don't come off well in the report have complained about it. Yesterday World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick got a letter signed by executive directors from China, Russia and Argentina, among others, questioning whether the bank ought to be involved in such an exercise, even if it does not directly affect the flow of dollars. The report is basically a survey of surveys -- its authors summed up public opinion polls and expert reports on various countries, covering everything from the costs of regulation to the frequency of terrorist attacks. As the authors candidly concede, this introduces an element of subjectivity. But, in the broadest sense, the report plainly measures something real. It seems right to us that China should rank near the bottom for "voice and accountability." Can anyone dispute that 99 percent of the world's countries are better on "the rule of law" than Zimbabwe, and that Robert Mugabe's realm has regressed substantially in this respect since 1998? Venezuela under Hugo Chávez has plunged on most indicators. At the other end of the spectrum, the study is surely correct to say that no country is tougher on corruption than Finland.

If anyone has a right to complain, it's the United States, which ranks in the 57th percentile for "political stability," the report's measure of a government's perceived vulnerability to forcible overthrow. This puts the world's oldest democracy about on a par with Italy and Bulgaria and slightly below Vietnam. Israel, meanwhile, ranks in the bottom 15 percent for political stability, behind every other country in the Middle East except Lebanon, Iran, Iraq (which got a zero) and Yemen.

The authors have an explanation: The scores reflect the impact of Sept. 11, 2001, on the United States and of the constant terrorist attacks on Israel. But doesn't the survival of both political systems under fire suggest their durability? All the more reason to take note of these findings, while heeding the authors' caveat that their work "cannot substitute for in-depth, country-specific governance diagnostics." Some things you just can't measure.