Bad news for Britain: Scientists rank how 173 countries function - and UK isn't even in the top 10!

If asked what the best country in the world is, many loyal Britons could be tempted to say Britain.

But scientists have now revealed a less biased version of the truth with 173 countries ranked using a nifty political tool.

The Stateness Index was pulled together by Germany‘s University of Würzburg, as researchers sought to discover which countries function the most efficiently.

You may be surprised to hear that the UK didn’t even make the top 10 as it placed 13th – just behind the Seychelles and Finland.

On the flip side, Singapore topped the chart, followed by Australia and Denmark.

Scroll down for the full list

TOP FIVE AND BOTTOM FIVE STATES OVERALL

TOP FIVE

Singapore
Australia
Denmark
Netherlands
Estonia

BOTTOM FIVE

Libya
Yemen
South Sudan
Afghanistan
Chad

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‘We did not only measure the formal state, but we also looked at the informal side,’ said Dr Theresa Paola Stawski, who worked on the model.

‘We can see the state in everything that surrounds us, for example in the streets, the courts, the police or the schools.’

The Stateness Index accounted for three key categories of data over the 72 years between 1950 and 2022.

A nation’s law, violence and overall administration were among these, while also considering everything from doctor waiting times to electricity access.

Different values were then measured and weighted against each other using the ‘V-Dem’ model which relies on the survey responses of more than 3,500 state experts.

Nations were categorised by their ‘stateness’ based on these results, ranging from the top rank of ‘high functioning’ to the lowest of ‘collapsed’.

Libya, Yemen, South Sudan and Papua New Guinea were among just four nations that received the ‘collapsed’ title, with researchers suggesting their public services were highly limited.

The majority (88) ranked as ‘defective’ or ‘profound defective’, with Haiti, Somalia and even Cyprus encompassed in that.

Singapore (pictured) was the best country for its law, lack of violence and administration

The UK didn’t even make the top 10 as it placed 13th – just behind the Seychelles and Finland

Although ‘defective’ nations often were politically stable, this wasn’t always the case, as scientists believed their systems were majorly flawed.

Meanwhile, a total of 81 were shown to be ‘functioning’ or ‘high functioning’, including a handful of autocracies in which one person holds absolute government power.

The US was among this upper tier but ranked far below Germany, the UK and Spain at a value of 23.

Dr Stawski claims these results were quite unexpected for many of the researchers involved.

She told MailOnline: ‘I was somewhat surprised, how well some autocracies like Singapore or the United Arab Emirates are functioning. This also proves that our Index does not suffer from an (extensive) democracy bias.

‘On the other hand, I was surprised to learn that Papua New Guinea is in fact a collapsed state, because the discrepancies of access to public services distributed by urban-rural location is extreme.’

Even still, Dr Stawski believes that continued research in this area is ‘even more fundamental’ to nations with a lack of human rights and freedom of speech.

‘I think state research is still a niche in political sciences,’ she told MailOnline.

‘Large-N analysis of the state is aggravated by the scarcity of valid, reliable, and transparent longitudinal high-quality data that accurately measures stateness.

‘But the state is the most important political set of institutions per se – so I am happy that we are able to contribute to the conceptual and analytical debate on stateness and state fragility.’

SCIENTISTS RANK HOW 173 STATES AROUND THE WORLD FUNCTION
Countries ranked	Stateness category
1:Singapore	High functioning State
2:Australia	High functioning State
3:Denmark	High functioning State
4:Netherlands	High functioning State
5:Estonia	High functioning State
6:Luxembourg	High functioning State
7:Norway	High functioning State
8:Belgium	High functioning State
9:New Zealand	High functioning State
10:Germany	High functioning State
11:Finland	High functioning State
12:Seychelles	High functioning State
13:United Kingdom	High functioning State
14:Sweden	High functioning State
15:Portugal	High functioning State
16:Latvia	High functioning State
17:Uruguay	High functioning State
18:Switzerland	High functioning State
19:Japan	High functioning State
20:France	High functioning State
21:Spain	High functioning State
22:Malta	High functioning State
23:United States	High functioning State
24:Czechia	High functioning State
25:Austria	High functioning State
26:Canada	High functioning State
27:Barbados	High functioning State
28:South Korea	High functioning State
29:Ireland	High functioning State
30:Lithuania	High functioning State
31:Costa Rica	High functioning State
32:United Arab Emirates	High functioning State
33:Slovenia	High functioning State
34:Iceland	High functioning State
35:Botswana	High functioning State
36:Chile	High functioning State
37:Slovakia	High functioning State
38:Italy	High functioning State
39:Jamaica	High functioning State
40:Israel	High functioning State
41:Poland	High functioning State
42:Trinidad and Tobago	High functioning State
43:Taiwan	High functioning State
44:Bulgaria	Moderate functioning State
45:Greece	High functioning State
46:Montenegro	High functioning State
47:Hungary	Moderate functioning State
48:Oman	Moderate functioning State
49:Bhutan	High functioning State
50:Argentina	Moderate functioning State
51:The Gambia	Moderate functioning State
52:Qatar	Moderate functioning State
53:Indonesia	Moderate functioning State
54:Croatia	Moderate functioning State
55:Romania	Moderate functioning State
56:Vanuatu	Moderate functioning State
57:Cuba	Moderate functioning State
58:Suriname	Moderate functioning State
59:Maldives	Moderate functioning State
60:Kuwait	Moderate functioning State
61:China	Moderate functioning State
62:Serbia	Moderate functioning State
63:Saudi Arabia	Moderate functioning State
64:Namibia	Moderate functioning State
65:Panama	Moderate functioning State
66:Jordan	Moderate functioning State
67:Albania	Moderate functioning State
68:North Korea	Defective State
69:Guyana	Defective State
70:Russia	Moderate functioning State
71:Brazil	Moderate functioning State
72:Kazakhstan	Moderate functioning State
73:Malaysia	Moderate functioning State
74:Cape Verde	Defective State
75:Benin	Moderate functioning State
76:Vietnam	Defective State
77:Ghana	Defective State
78:Thailand	Moderate functioning State
79:Mongolia	Defective State
80:Mauritius	Moderate functioning State
81:Kenya	Moderate functioning State
82:Tanzania	Moderate functioning State
83:Ecuador	Defective State
84:Zambia	Defective State
85:South Africa	Defective State
86:Sri Lanka	Moderate functioning State
87:North Macedonia	Moderate functioning State
88:Uganda	Defective State
89:Algeria	Defective State
90:Philippines	Defective State
91:Georgia	Moderate functioning State
92:Uzbekistan	Defective State
93:Fiji	Defective State
94:Eswatini	Defective State
95:Sao Tome and Principe	Defective State
96:Turkey	Moderate functioning State
97:Morocco	Defective State
98:Sierra Leone	Defective State
99:Mexico	Defective State
100:Kosovo	Moderate functioning State
101:Angola	Defective State
102:Cyprus	Defective State
103:Moldova	Defective State
104:Kyrgyzstan	Defective State
105:Laos	Defective State
106:Peru	Defective State
107:Malawi	Profound defective State
108:Lesotho	Defective State
109:Colombia	Defective State
110:India	Defective State
111:Turkmenistan	Defective State
112:Dominican Republic	Profound defective State
113:Timor-Leste	Defective State
114:Bosnia and Herzegovina	Defective State
115:Senegal	Defective State
116:Armenia	Defective State
117:Bolivia	Defective State
118:Zimbabwe	Defective State
119:Gabon	Defective State
120:El Salvador	Defective State
121:Ivory Coast	Defective State
122:Honduras	Defective State
123:Belarus	Profound defective State
124:Bangladesh	Profound defective State
125:Nepal	Profound defective State
126:Rwanda	Profound defective State
127:Mauritania	Profound defective State
128:Djibouti	Defective State
129:Ukraine	Defective State
130:Nicaragua	Defective State
131:Burundi	Profound defective State
132:Iran	Defective State
133:Egypt	Profound defective State
134:Burkina Faso	Defective State
135:Solomon Islands	Profound defective State
136:Nigeria	Defective State
137:Paraguay	Defective State
138:Cambodia	Defective State
139:Madagascar	Defective State
140:Togo	Defective State
141:Sudan	Defective State
142:Azerbaijan	Profound defective State
143:Tajikistan	Profound defective State
144:Comoros	Defective State
145:Cameroon	Profound defective State
146:Mozambique	Profound defective State
147:Mali	Profound defective State
148:Guatemala	Profound defective State
149:Iraq	Defective State
150:Pakistan	Profound defective State
151:Equatorial Guinea	Profound defective State
152:Bahrain	Profound defective State
153:Guinea-Bissau	Profound defective State
154:Lebanon	Defective State
155:Burma/Myanmar	Profound defective State
156:Eritrea	Profound defective State
157:Liberia	Profound defective State
158:Niger	Profound defective State
159:Guinea	Profound defective State
160:Democratic Republic of the Congo	Profound defective State
161:Ethiopia	Profound defective State
162:Republic of the Congo	Profound defective State
163:Papua New Guinea	Collapsed State
164:Venezuela	Profound defective State
165:Syria	Profound defective State
166:Somalia	Profound defective State
167:Haiti	Profound defective State
168:Central African Republic	Profound defective State
169:Chad	Profound defective State
170:Afghanistan	Profound defective State
171:South Sudan	Collapsed State
172:Yemen	Collapsed State
173:Libya	Collapsed State