International Country Ratings: Armenia-Azerbaijan

Singapore is considered “the most positive” country of 2010, Pakistan – “the most negative”, United States of America is the most popular, San Tome and Principe – “the most unpopular”.

These ratings can be given proceeding from the results of the research carried out by a prestigious American “East West Communications” company that calculates international ratings of the world’s 200 nations (including 192 UN member countries).

The research is based on the analysis of millions of references in hundreds of thousands of news.

A special lingua-psychological system is used that includes about 16,000 words and expressions that show positive or negative stimuli (for instance, the words “help”, “agreement”, “free”, “support”, “growth”, “win”, “strong”, “hope” contain positive messages, whereas the words “kill”, “refugee”, “violence”, “separatist”, “attack”, “coup” contain negative messages).

Proceeding from the calculation of such messages and the number of references about the countries, the rating of the country is defined among other countries of the world.

According to this research in 2008 Armenia was ranked the 100^th with 6919 references and Azerbaijan was the 103^rd with 6110 references.

Among positive brandings Armenia was the 75^th, Azerbaijan – the 53^rd.

By the 2009 data Armenia was ranked the 88^th in the world by the number of references in leading media outlets (9829 references) and by positive references it was the 152^nd. Azerbaijan was ranked the 119^th (4960 references) and the 101^st in the positive reference category.

Applying the results of the research only on the factor of foreign policy, let us try to present the index of Armenia’s international rating and compare it with Azerbaijan’s appropriate index.

Comparing with the results of the last quarter of 2009, in the first quarter of 2010 Armenia’s rating was -14, Azerbaijan’s +18. In the first quarter of 2010, i.e. in January, February and March, Armenia was the 96^th by the number of references (2,251 times), Azerbaijan was the 143^rd (631 times). In the same quarter Armenia was 162^nd by positive brandings and Azerbaijan was the 81^st.

It has to be mentioned that the quarter in Armenia’s foreign policy sphere started by the decision of the RA Constitutional Court on Armenian-Turkish protocols which in fact was not accepted adequately in international media (Armenia’s propaganda in this direction was still weak, Armenian president’s speech at Chatham House, interviews in the French “Le Figaro”, Syrian “Al Watan”, Euronews and Al Jazeera could not provide results yet), and in the conditions of Turkish foreign policy (seeing preconditions in Armenia’s behavior) Armenia received negative coverage in leading international media.

In general, basing on the Armenian-Turkish relations failure process (Ankara’s position of speaking with preconditions had its “contribution” in it), Armenia was ranked low by positive references.

This is natural if we compare it with the last year’s high level of Armenia’s indexes due to Armenian-Turkish processes: Armenia’s rating had dramatically increased in the third quarter of 2008 (July, August and September) reaching the 84^th rank (about 3380 references). By positive references too it had grown up to the 135^th rank.

And in the fourth quarter (October, November, December), when Armenian-Turkish football diplomacy was actively discussed at international scene, Armenia was mentioned 2,399 times (98^th rank). And the most remarkable is the fact that the state had a breakthrough progress in positive references leaving behind such prosperous countries as the Netherlands, Sweden, Austria, Canada and such powers as Great Britain, China and France. Armenia was ranked the 18^th in the world.

Among the 12 CIS countries (Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Armenia, Belarus, Russia, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan) Azerbaijan was the fourth “positive” country, Armenia – the 10^th.

In the first quarter of 2010 the leading ten countries by the number of references are the United States, United Kingdom, India, China, Australia, Canada, France, Israel, Japan and Germany.

The top ten positively branded countries are Singapore, Canada, South Korea, Norway, Malaysia, Kuwait, Italy, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Australia.

In the second quarter of 2010 as compared with the first the change for Armenia was +7, for Azerbaijan -37. Thus in April, May and June 2010 Armenia was 114^th in the world by the number of references (1,608); Azerbaijan had deteriorated its position by one rank, it was 142^nd (785 references). In this quarter Azerbaijan essentially deteriorated its high indexes of positive references going down to the 118^th rank, whereas Armenia improved its index going up to the 155^th rank.

Within the mentioned time period Armenian political and public circles managed to show the inefficient political will of Turkey in the issue of settling Armenian-Turkish relations. President of Armenia suspended [ratification] of protocols proving Ankara’s guilt in suspending the process.

Azerbaijan’s low indexes were conditioned by the activation of its aggressive policies (e.g. the case of military aggression against NKR on June 18) and declaration of its position to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict by force. (This behavior, as predicted, continues also during the following quarters which will deteriorate Azerbaijan’s positive index.)

Nevertheless within this time period Armenia was on the 8^th and Azerbaijan on the 6^th position among the CIS countries.

Like in the previous 2 years, in these quarters too Azerbaijan gets a more positive attitude from international media than Armenia.

The problem is both carrying out sufficient diplomatic and (in that context) propaganda work and special international interest to the countries. It is worth mentioning that the research has taken into account not only the political sphere but also tourism, culture and economy. However, in these fields too positive references depend not so much on rich culture and liberal economy as propaganda of success in culture and economy.

The top ten countries in the world perhaps have both: in the second quarter of 2010 the leading ten countries by the number of references were as follows: United States, United Kingdom, India, Australia, China, Israel, France, Germany, Japan and Canada. The ten most positive referenced countries are Singapore, Malaysia, Canada, Italy, South Korea, Kuwait, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Hong Kong and France.