Methodology

How Does It Work? The QNI in a Nutshell

Everyone has a nationality (citizenship) of one or more states. States’ characteristics differ greatly — the landmass of the Russian Federation is huge, while Eswatini’s is small; Luxembourg is rich, Mongolia less so. Just as states differ, so too do nationalities themselves. The key premise of the QNI is that it is possible to compare the relative worth of nationalities, not simply of countries. We believe that because a nationality is a legal status that significantly impacts its citizens’ lives both inside and outside the territory of the conferring state, knowing the comparative value of a nationality is hugely important.

For a reliable comparison of nationalities, it is important to consider both internal and external factors.

Internally, the QNI looks at how successful the country is in terms of human development, economic prosperity, and stability and peace.

It is preferable to have the nationality of a country with long life expectancy, a good education system, and a high level of prosperity, such as Australia, than that of a country that offers less security and poorer education and health care to its nationals, such as Ukraine.

It is better to have the nationality of a country with a large economy, like the United States — and as a consequence, enjoy the rights to work and reside in it — than in a tiny country, however prosperous, like San Marino.

It is better to have the nationality of a peaceful and stable country, like Denmark, than that of a country with security risks, like Venezuela.

The QNI takes three internal factors into account:

• Economic Strength
• Human Development
• Peace and Stability

External factors are no less important, however: some nationalities allow their holders to travel all around the world unobstructed, with no questions asked.

Consider the Belgian nationality, for instance, which allows visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 176 countries and territories. Other nationalities require the acquisition of endless visas for tourist and business travel, and at times make such travel de facto impossible. The Turkmen nationality, for example, enables visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to only 51 countries and territories.

More importantly, however, most of the world’s nationalities confer a right on their holders to be welcomed by other countries and societies besides their own — a right to home treatment. In this sense, possessing one nationality can give rise to plentiful rights in a number of states as opposed to in just one, including the right to work and the right to settle. Liechtenstein nationality, although conferred by a tiny country, gives its bearers full access to all the EU Member States and all the countries of the European Economic Area: Liechtensteiners are at home in 41 countries and territories, enjoying all the rights that the bearers of the local nationalities enjoy. When one compares this with Madagascan nationality, for example, which is associated with no such extraterritorial rights at all, the difference becomes clear.

Two external elements used to evaluate any nationality’s worth are therefore extremely important:

• Travel Freedom
• Settlement Freedom

To reflect the added value of both elements in the most effective way, the QNI looks at two criteria. The first criterion is the number of other jurisdictions one can travel to or settle in while holding a particular nationality, because the diversity of the places one can live in or visit based on one’s nationality has a profound effect on quality of life. In this respect, Liechtensteiner nationality is better than Madagascan nationality, and German is better than Turkmen.

The second criterion takes into account the Human Development level and Economic Strength of every possible country that a person with a particular nationality can travel to or settle in. By this measure, being able to travel to France visa-free is of greater added value than being able to visit war-torn Syria visa-free. The same is true for settlement: having an unconditional right to work and live in Germany, for instance, puts Icelandic nationality above Chinese nationality, since Chinese nationality does not even allow settlement and work in the totality of the territory of the issuing state itself. Indeed, the Special Administrative Regions of Macao and Hong Kong require mainland Chinese nationals to acquire permits to settle in or even visit them.

All of these factors were taken into consideration to create the QNI: Kälin and Kochenov’s Index allows for an objective and impartial comparative assessment of the worth of all the world’s nationalities. By taking both internal and, crucially, external factors into consideration, the QNI offers a clear account of which nationalities are objectively better than others, and disproves a number of unhelpful mythologies — such as that the possession of any nationality is equally fine or that the most prosperous and economically important countries provide their nationals with the best nationality.

Intuitively, we have suspected all along that some nationalities were great while others were, quite simply, terrible; now we know which are which, and the Index’s intuitively understandable round charts allow for easy comparisons. The QNI divides the nationalities of the world into five tiers based on quality: Very High Quality, High Quality, Medium Quality, Low Quality; and Very Low Quality. This division gives a very clear idea of the standing of each of the world’s nationalities at a glance.

Updating this index annually will make sure that an up-to-date picture of the quality of world nationalities is readily available at any moment in time, illuminating medium- to long-term trends in nationalities’ development.

More Details of QNI Measurement and Ranking

The QNI ranks nationalities on a scale from 0% to 100%. Scores are rounded to one decimal place. These rankings consist of both internal and external factors. The weighting of internal and external factors within the QNI General Ranking is 40% and 60% respectively, both built from critical sub-elements, as outlined below.