Thanks for a really interesting question.
The internet provides some absolutely wonderful tools for creating
tables (or maps or graphs) of comparisons among countries on a wide
variety of variables.
Some of the tools are specific to one topic, but a few of them cover a
broad range of national statistics. I've included some of the more
user-friendly tools below, and have used them to create tables that
cover the topics you asked about. I'm sure you will want to explore
the sites on your own, however, as there is much more information
available than anyone can possibly present in a single answer.
For starters, have a look at the wonderful site, NationMaster:
http://www.nationmaster.com/
Welcome to NationMaster.com, a massive central data source and a handy
way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation
of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, United Nations,
World Health Organization, World Bank, World Resources Institute,
UNESCO, UNICEF and OECD. Using the form above, you can generate maps
and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease.
They go on to boast that they have over 5,000 sets of statistics,
ready for quick data runs.
Before diving into the 5,000 options, though, it's useful to look at
their list of Top Graphs, as there are several there that should be of
interest to you:
http://www.nationmaster.com/top_stats.php
NationMaster: Top Stats
For instance, #3 on the list is stats for "Corruption":
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/gov_cor
Map & Graph: Government: Corruption
Relates to perceptions of the degree of corruption as seen by business
people, academics and risk analysts, and ranges between 0 (highly
clean) and 10 (highly corrupt).
1. Bangladesh 8.7
2. Nigeria 8.6
3. Haiti 8.5
4. Paraguay 8.4
5. Burma 8.4
6. Georgia 8.2
7. Angola 8.2
8. Tajikistan 8.2
9. Cameroon 8.2
10.Azerbaijan 8.2
The United States, by comparison, is #113 on the list, with a score of
2.5. Finland is at the bottom of the list as the least corrupt
country in the world, with a score of only 0.3.
Spend a bit of time playing around here. Clicking on the column
titles, or on the map, or on the "Show map full screen" link gives you
a number of different variations on how the data are presented.
NationMaster does a nice job of presenting source information, as
well. For the above data, the source is listed as Transparency
International, Data for 2003...you can click on the hyperlink to go
directly to the Transparency International site.
==========
Other tables from NationMaster that relate to your particular requests are these:
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_mur_cap
Crime: Murders (per capita)
1. Colombia 0.6 per 1,000 people
2. South Africa 0.5 per 1,000 people
3. Jamaica 0.3 per 1,000 people
4. Venezuela 0.3 per 1,000 people
5. Russia 0.2 per 1,000 people
6. Mexico 0.1 per 1,000 people
7. Estonia 0.1 per 1,000 people
8. Latvia 0.1 per 1,000 people
9. Lithuania 0.1 per 1,000 people
10. Belarus 0.1 per 1,000 people
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_tot_cri_cap
Total crimes (per capita)
1. Dominica 113.8 per 1,000 people
2. New Zealand 105.9 per 1,000 people
3. Finland 101.5 per 1,000 people
4. Denmark 92.8 per 1,000 people
5. Chile 88.2 per 1,000 people
6. United Kingdom 85.6 per 1,000 people
7. Montserrat 80.4 per 1,000 people
8. United States 80.1 per 1,000 people
9. Netherlands 79.6 per 1,000 people
10. South Africa 77.2 per 1,000 people
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/dem_civ_and_pol_lib
Democracy: Civil and political liberties
1. Denmark 6
2. Uruguay 6
3. Norway 6
4. Iceland 6
5. Finland 6
6. Ireland 6
7. Austria 6
8. United States 6
9. New Zealand 6
10. Australia 6
[not too many developing countries on the Top 10 here, but you can
certainly find them later on in the list]
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_jud_and_mag_cap
Crime: Judges and Magistrates (per capita)
1. Montserrat 0.7 per 1,000 people
2. Russia 0.5 per 1,000 people
3. Slovenia 0.4 per 1,000 people
4. Croatia 0.4 per 1,000 people
5. Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of 0.3 per 1,000 people
6. Czech Republic 0.3 per 1,000 people
7. Hungary 0.3 per 1,000 people
8. Finland 0.2 per 1,000 people
9. Slovakia 0.2 per 1,000 people
10. Bulgaria 0.2 per 1,000 people
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph-T/cri_adu_pro_cap
Crime: Adults prosecuted (per capita)
1. United States 48.0 per 1,000 people
2. Finland 31.6 per 1,000 people
3. New Zealand 31.1 per 1,000 people
4. Turkey 29.6 per 1,000 people
5. United Kingdom 24.9 per 1,000 people
6. Korea, South 24.6 per 1,000 people
7. Slovenia 11.5 per 1,000 people
8. Canada 11.5 per 1,000 people
9. Hungary 11.2 per 1,000 people
10. Netherlands 10.8 per 1,000 people
Other crime and justice related tables can be found here:
http://www.nationmaster.com/cat/Crime
You'll also note that at the top of each NationMaster page is a green
box where you can custom-design your own output for various
statistics. You may want to play around with this, though their
ready-made lists are pretty comprehensive in their own right.
As good as NationMaster is, it's not the only game in town (or on the
internet, as the case may be).
The government of Finland, oddly enough, has compiled a terrific set
of comparative national statistics, each set available as a
spreadsheet:
http://www.stat.fi/tup/maanum/hakemisto_en.html
World in Figures
The emphasis here is more economic than social, but if you want to
know national apple production from around the world, this is the site
to visit.
A site called GeographyIQ also offers a set of country-by-country comparisons:
http://www.geographyiq.com/ranking/rankings.htm
Lastly, the Statistics Division of the UN is busy tracking the
Millennium Development Goals -- a set of measures to track progress
(hopefully) in pulling the Third World into the First World. The
website isn't quite as user-friendly as one might like, but it is a
rich source of data nonetheless:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_goals.asp
Millennium Development Goal Indicators Database
Click on any of the "Indicators" of interest to see the types of
metrics available, and continue clicking on the "View Data" links
until you get to the actual data itself. For instance, here's the
data on the Youth Unemployment Rate for all the UN countries of the
world:
http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mi/mi_series_results.asp?rowId=630
I trust this information fully answers your question.
However, please don't rate this answer until you have everything you
need. If there's anything more I can do for you, just post a Request
for Clarification, and I'm happy to assist you further.
pafalafa-ga
search strategy -- Used bookmarked sites for national data sources. |
