There is a clear correlation between these four factors, but I want to tear apart the issues.
When dividing countries up into true or false based on World Governance Indicators, we find that the largest group of countries are corrupt, undemocratic, poor, have a restrictive visa policy (fewer than 100 nationalities can arrive fully visa-free), have a weak passport (can travel to fewer than 100 countries without any form of visa), and are poorly educated (the average citizen has gone to school for less than 9 years).
There are 30 countries in the next largest group which are the opposite. Clean democracies with strong economies, open visa policies, strong passports, and are well educated.
So the question becomes, which is doing most of the work? Democracy or corruption?
When it comes to wealth, the main factor is corruption. 8 countries are corrupt democracies. They have restrictive visa policies and weak passports, and they are poor. They are also poorly educated.
Remove visa policies
cc va GDP per capita Mean Years of Schooling
False False False False 60
True True True True 39
False False False True 21
True False False 17
True True False False 12
False True False True 10
True True False True 10
True False 9
False True True 6
False True True True 4
False True False 2
True False True False 2
False False True True 1
True False False False 1
True 1
While corruption and democracy are clearly very correlated, corruption appears to be a larger factor than democracy or education levels for economic well-being.
Major factor for visa policy
So this might sound like an excuse that human rights and democracy do not matter, but not so fast. Democracy is still important! Democracies tend to be less corrupt which drives economic growth. By being more democratic leading to a better educated population, most wealthy countries are democracies, but not all, which is how we know the reduction in corruption as observed in most democracies are intertwined.
While democracy is clearly tied to cleanliness, it is not a prerequisite for lower corruption.
But what about when it comes to your passport’s strength? Is it more important to be democratic, low corruption, or wealthy? (see the appendix if you are confused about the table) I have cut the table only to rows with at least 5 relevant countries. The rest is not important.
cc va GDP per capita Visa free for passport Visa free to enter Mean Years of Schooling
False False False False False False 49
True True True True True True 30
False False False False False True 15
True False False False False 10
True True True True False True 9
True False 7
False False False False True False 6
True True False True True True 6
False False False 5
From what we can see from this data it appears that we still have a trend that clean wealthy democracies have open visa policies and strong passports. We also find that corrupt poor autocracies have restrictive visa policies and weak passports.
Corrupt democracies tend to be poor, but they also tend to have restrictive visa policies and weak passports.
Being well educated alone doesn’t make a major difference on economic growth or passport strength. The better educated people need to clean up their government in order to see improvements.
We also find in this table that being well educated is more important for passport strength as opposed to having an open visa policy.
There are a few clean well-educated wealthy democracies with strong passports, strong economies, and restrictive visa policies. These countries are former British colonies.
Simply opening up your borders with a less restrictive visa policy without cleaning up your government will not lead to a strong passport.
Clean autocracies are rare, but they tend to be rich, have a restrictive visa policy, and have weak passports.
Proposed mechanism
Let’s say you are starting out at the bottom of the heap, your country is corrupt, undemocratic, poor, poorly educated, you have a weak passport, and a restrictive visa policy.
Where do you begin?
Start with your government. Remove the autocrat and transition your government to democracy first.
Once your government is democratic, elect leaders who will focus on cleaning up your government while investing in education to keep people in school as long as possible.
As your democratic government is cleaning up your economy, loosen visa requirements.
As your government is cleaned up and corruption is lowered, your economy will grow.
This has been the strategy used in Latin America and former Russian colonies in Eastern Europe. It works. Even though most of Latin America has problems with lower education levels and their economies are in the middle of the global spectrum, they still have powerful passports. Europe democratized, voted in reformers to clean up corruption, they had no issue with their education levels, and their economies have grown. Both regions have seen their travel freedom increase quickly, and Latin America and Eastern European passports can generally travel to between 100-150 countries without any visa. This proves that democracy is more important than corruption or economic growth. Every Middle Eastern country except Israel and the United Arab Emirates are visa-exempt to fewer than 100 countries, despite having a large GDP per capita. Democracy is more important than economics or corruption when it comes to global passport strength.
In terms of strengthening your passport, we can see that reducing corruption, having an open visa policy, and being democratic is more important than income in terms of strengthening your passport. So if your goal is having a strong passport, focus on democracy, corruption, visa-free policies, and education. The money will come.
If you start with cleaning up your government, but you do not make it a democracy, some people will likely become very rich, and education will be well-funded, but the wealth will only cement the autocrat into power further, harming civil liberties. This will mean your passport will not strengthen, and your visa policy will be restrictive, harming your tourism industry. We see that the Gulf States worked on corruption first, without democratization. While they became rich, they did not see their travel freedom grow as fast as in Eastern Europe.
For this reason, start with democracy, and vote in people who will clean up the government. That is the best method for economic development and improving your passport’s power.
Appendix: Data notes
- cc and va are from the World Governance Indicators. False means the value is less than 0, True means the value is greater than 0. Larger is better. cc is for corruption, va is voice and accountability.
- GDP per capita is from the World Bank. True means the country’s GDP per capita is over $10,000.
- Visa free to enter counts how many nationalities can travel to that country. True means at least 100 nationalities have full visa-free access to that country.
- Visa free for passport means that nationality can travel to at least 100 other countries without any form of visa.
- Mean Years of Schooling. True means that the average person has at least a 9th grade education.
The table counts how many countries have the attributes in each row. I am assuming that if more countries have an attribute, than it is more likely to occur, and is not random.
