SOLVED

A fellow of the Institute of Public Administration Australia explores why 10 countries excel in certain areas, such as fostering innovation, promoting longevity, or achieving energy independence.

Intentionally or not, Wear updates for our age of hyperglobalization the approach used in the business classic In Search of Excellence. Each country gets a chapter that ends with tips on achieving its results, and most entries hit the mark. Iceland has “the world’s smallest gender gap,” owing partly to strong anti-discrimination policies, one of which says that women must hold at least 40% of the board seats at companies over a certain size. Wind turbine–rich Denmark is blazing renewable-energy trails—on windy days, Denmark “regularly generates more than 100 per cent of its electricity requirements from wind”—and South Korea’s universal health care helps explain why its average citizen has a life expectancy at birth that “exceeds that of every single English-speaking country.” With homegrown tech giants like Apple and Google, the U.S. is the innovator in chief, aided by collaborative ties among governments, businesses, and universities in places like Silicon Valley and “innovation districts” in Phoenix and other cities. Wear less plausibly praises Indonesia’s “successful transition from dictatorship to democracy,” even as “dark clouds” are gathering. When it comes to enlightened immigration policies, the author gives the nod to Australia—although it treats some new arrivals in “rather draconian” ways—instead of Canada, often called the world’s best country for immigrants, including in a 2019 U.S. News & World Report survey (Australia is listed fourth). A few iffy choices aside, Wear conversationally imparts a wealth of carefully analyzed facts that amount to far more than a glorified BuzzFeed list. He has much to say not just to policymakers, but to business and other travelers to countries he profiles.

Insightful—if sometimes debatable—portraits of countries on the cutting edge of social progress.