SMALL
COUNTRIES RADIO SHOWS
This is my B.B.C. World Service radio series on small countries. I divided the topic by theme (small politics, small economics, small media, etc…). The World Service is kind of odd. It reaches a huge number of people, but many are listening on poor quality receivers, and most don't have English as a first language. I was told to make my delivery more, er, enthusiastic than usual and to recap regularly. You have been warned.
There exists in this harsh, brutal world pockets of Utopian calm and tranquillity. Countries with practically no starvation, homelessness, unemployment, crime or racism. Oh, and very little in the way of population or land mass either.
Most of these nations could take their entire population to see game at Wembley and still have room to invite along a few friends. But, small as they are, countries as seemingly diverse as Monaco, Nauru, Iceland, Kiribati, Samoa, the Maldives and the Seychelles are extremely successful societies.
Their systems of government may vary (principality, republic, Islamic democracy, constitutional monarchy), but the result is eerily similar. Given regional standards, the population is educated, prosperous and ludicrously well taken care of.
For example, even though all Monegasques have state owned apartments assigned to them, should they prefer to live elsewhere in Monaco, the state will pay a huge chunk of their rent. They also get the pick of the country's best jobs. And parking spaces. But they are constitutionally forbidden from gambling in their country's casinos. For their own good, of course.
For the past decade I have been compulsively visiting as many microstates
(population under 250,000) as possible with a view to discovering why
they are so darn perfect.
I produced a six part series on the subject for the BBC World Service which you can hear by clicking below. I hope to inflict more on readers, viewers and listeners as soon as I am allowed.
Quite a few articles on the topic
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