EIU: Ireland particularly vulnerable

[evercloserunion]

The Economist Intelligence Unit has published a report entitled Manning the barricades: Who's at risk as deepening economic distress foments social unrest analysing, as the title suggests, the impact of the economic crisis on countries around the world in terms of social disorder & unrest. The report deals with a very wide array of nations from around the world. Ireland is included as amongst the more vulnerable of the developed countries but it is clear that it is not alone in its troubles, and not surprisingly it is the undeveloped and underdeveloped countries who face the biggest risk of social breakdown.

Heavily indebted economies that experienced housing bubbles, such as the US and the UK, Spain and Ireland, are particularly vulnerable to deleveraging and asset price declines ... But they are not alone in suffering the
consequences.

The risk to Ireland in terms of political instability was classed as moderate, much like the rest of Europe, the US and China. Canada, the Scandinavian countries, Australia and Germany were classified as low risk while Russia was high and areas like South America, Africa and the Middle East were generally high of very high with a few exceptions.

Each nation was given a "political instability index" score, based on growth in incomes, unemployment and level of income per head (methodology is explained at www.eiu.com/special). the higher the PSI score, the greater the risk of political instability. Ireland shared its 4.6 PSI score with the UK and Tunisia, slightly lower than Singapore and Malta (4.7) and slightly higher than India and Poland (4.5). Zimbabwe topped the list with a PSI score of 8.8, while Norway was at the bottom with a score of 1.2.

The report notes Ireland as one of the Western European nations where there have been "strikes or large-scale protests" along with Greece, Iceland, the UK and others. the report claims that several European democracies as well as EU cohesion itself may be threatened by the current crisis.

The report can be read in full at http://a330.g.akamai.net/7/330/25828...barricades.pdf (warning PDF).

Any thoughts?

[Clanrickard]

The title is misleading. We were ranked 132nd alongside the UK out of 165. In other words we are very stable.