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Q: Third World Law ( Answered 5 out of 5 stars,   1 Comment )
Question  
Subject: Third World Law
Category: Relationships and Society > Law
Asked by: query9049-ga
List Price: $100.00
Posted: 14 Nov 2005 16:55 PST
Expires: 14 Dec 2005 16:55 PST
Question ID: 592981
I am researching the legal framework of various third world countries
in comparison to the Unites States. Therefore, I am looking for
international statistics on Contract compliance, Criminal
prosecutions, Transparency, Corruption for various underdeveloped
countries, as well as the United States. It is important that the
statistical categories be the same across countries listed.

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 14 Nov 2005 17:09 PST
query9049-ga,

You've posted an interesting question, but I'd appreciate some
guidance as to how to proceed with it.

1) On the one hand, for some categories, there are a great many types
of statistics.  Does it matter to you which ones are selected?  For
instance, statistics on crime might be represented by the data I've
listed below...but there are other ways that countries can be compared
in terms of criminal activity and judicial activity.

2) For other categories, there may not be a handy means of comparing
countries.  I'm not sure there are good statistics on contract
compliance, for instance.  How do you suggest we handle the
possibility of missing or incomplete information.

I want to provide you with just what you need, so whatever feedback
you can offer would be welcome.

Let me know your thoughts.

pafalafa-ga

Here is the list of criminal prosecutions that I mentioned:

=====
Crime: Adults prosecuted   
    
 Country ..........Amount 
1. United States 14,203,800  
2. Turkey 2,060,060  
3. United Kingdom 1,504,730  
4. Korea, South 1,196,480  
5. Thailand 572,083  
6. Germany 568,661  
7. Canada 377,667  
8. Netherlands 177,062  
9. Finland 165,229  
10. Japan 145,872  
11. New Zealand 125,323  
12. Hungary 111,779  
13. Portugal 106,693  
14. Czech Republic 102,250  
15. Mexico 63,724  
16. Belarus 62,005  
17. Romania 61,161  
18. Zimbabwe 54,934  
19. France 54,224  
20. Croatia 45,485  
21. Bulgaria 43,380  
22. Slovakia 32,503  
23. Hong Kong 25,494  
24. Slovenia 23,177  
25. Kyrgyzstan 21,373  
26. Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav Republic of 20,220  
27. Latvia 15,255  
28. Norway 12,009  
29. Estonia 11,377  
30. Georgia 6,960 
=====

Clarification of Question by query9049-ga on 14 Nov 2005 18:06 PST
Hi,

I am just trying to get a basis for a (non-academic) research project.
And what you provided is a good start in that direction.
As for your specific questions:
1) Whatever you might turn up in the area of crime, and or civil law
is ok. The key is that I have access to 'comparative' stats.
2) Missing data is ok. Contract compliance was just an example. It it
is just an example of a legal systems non-criminal legal compliance.
Finally, I am looking for the links to sources, as well as the
data.The overall plan is to find alot of comparative data, and go from
there.

Thanks...

Request for Question Clarification by hedgie-ga on 21 Nov 2005 12:43 PST
Perhaps it would be useful to define the term 'third world' countries.

Post-comunistic countries like Slovakia was 2nd: 
    "Second World" refers to the former communist-socialist,
industrial states, (formerly the Eastern bloc, the territory and
sphere of influence of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic) today:
Russia, Eastern Europe (e.g., Poland) and some of the Turk States
(e.g., Kazakhstan) as well as China"

http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/third_world_countries.htm
now as part of EU, are they in the 1st or second?

Clarification of Question by query9049-ga on 21 Nov 2005 17:30 PST
Perhaps "Third World" isn't even a polite term anymore. However, I did
mean countries that were distinctly not well developed economies.
China, etc are too developed for the statistical comparison I have
interest in. For instance, comparative statistics in legal
enforcement, contracts, and convictions for  the United States and a
country such as Niger.
Answer  
Subject: Re: Third World Law
Answered By: pafalafa-ga on 22 Nov 2005 08:13 PST
Rated:5 out of 5 stars
 
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.
query9049-ga rated this answer:5 out of 5 stars
Thank you pafalafa! Great job for a starter project.

Comments  
Subject: Re: Third World Law
From: pafalafa-ga on 22 Nov 2005 09:32 PST
 
Thank you kindly.

Hope to see you back here one day soon.

paf

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