Kälin and Kochenov’s Quality of Nationality Index

Unique and innovative exploration of the standing of particular citizenship status in today’s globalised world

Kälin and Kochenov’s Quality of Nationality Index (QNI) ranks the objective value of all nationalities as legal statuses of attachment to states. Using a wide variety of strictly quantifiable data to gauge the opportunities presented and limitations imposed by nationalities on their holders, the QNI provides a comprehensive ranking of the intrinsic quality of each citizenship status in the world. Both the internal value (economic opportunities, human development and peace and stability) and the external value (including the number and quality of visa-free travel and, crucially, settlement destinations) of all the nationalities in the world are measured, only to reveal the reality that the quality of nationalities is not correlated with the prestige of the issuing states.
Beautifully produced, richly illustrated and accompanied by insightful expert commentary, the QNI is the seminal reference for the citizenship aficionados. It is also an invaluable tool to illustrate the huge discrepancies in the value of the nationalities of the world: showcasing first-hand the unequal distribution of rights and opportunities which different nationalities bring to their holders.

The full QNI dataset on which this work is based is available in open access on Mendeley.