EVERY Christmas since 2013 The Economist has picked a “country of the year”. Rogue nations are not eligible, no matter how much they frighten people. (Sorry, North Korea.) Nor do we plump for the places that exert the most influence through sheer size or economic muscle—otherwise China and America would be hard to beat. Rather, we look for a country, of any size, that has changed notably for the better in the past 12 months, or made the world brighter.
We make mistakes. In 2015 we picked Myanmar, for moving from “larcenous dictatorship” to “something resembling democracy”. We acknowledged that its treatment of the Rohingya minority was disgraceful, but failed to predict how much worse it would soon get. This year, after more than 600,000 Rohingyas fled their smouldering villages to avoid being raped and slaughtered by the Burmese army, we are tempted to name next-door Bangladesh as the country of the year for taking in so many of them. The country has also seen rapid economic growth and a sharp fall in poverty. Had it not crushed civil liberties and allowed Islamists free rein to intimidate, it might have won.
Another candidate is Argentina, where President Mauricio Macri is enacting painful reforms to restore fiscal sobriety after years of spendthrift populism under the Kirchner family. In October Mr Macri’s party won the largest share of the vote in mid-term elections, suggesting that most Argentines are no longer fooled by bogus statistics and the promise of free money. Despite violent protests in December, this is progress.
In the end our shortlist came down to South Korea and France. South Korea has had an extraordinary year, enduring threats from its missile-wielding northern neighbour with calm and grace. This is not entirely new—North Korea has been vowing to immolate the South for decades—but tensions rose alarmingly this year, as President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un traded taunts, calling each other “rocket man” and “mentally deranged US dotard”. As all this was going on, South Korea had to cope with a crisis at home as well.
Mass demonstrations and a corruption probe led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye, who is now in a jail cell facing trial. Her successor, Moon Jae-in, has weathered a Chinese boycott over the deployment of anti-missile defences (China frets that the new radar can see into China as well as North Korea). Mr Moon has politely delayed Mr Trump’s demands to renegotiate a trade deal. And a court has jailed Lee Jae-yong, the boss of Samsung, the largest of the country’s dominant chaebol (conglomerates). In short, South Korea has made great strides towards cleaning up its domestic politics despite living under constant threat of nuclear apocalypse.
Le jour de gloire est arrivé
In most years, that would be enough. But in 2017 France defied all expectations. Emmanuel Macron, a young ex-banker who had no backing from any of the traditional parties, won the presidency. Then La République En Marche, Mr Macron’s brand-new party full of political novices, crushed the old guard to win most of the seats in the National Assembly. This was not merely a stunning upset. It also gave hope to those who think that the old left-right divide is less important than the one between open and closed. Mr Macron campaigned for a France that is open to people, goods and ideas from abroad, and to social change at home. In six months he and his party have passed a series of sensible reforms, including an anti-corruption bill and a loosening of France’s rigid labour laws.
Critics mock Mr Macron’s grandiosity (calling his presidency “Jupiterian” was a bit much). They carp that his reforms could have gone further, which is true. Perhaps they forget how, before he turned up, France looked unreformable—offering voters a choice between sclerosis and xenophobia. Mr Macron’s movement swept aside the ancien régime and trounced the ultra-nationalist Marine Le Pen (who, had she won, would have wrecked the European Union). The struggle between the open and closed visions of society may well be the most important political contest in the world right now. France confronted the drawbridge-raisers head on and beat them. For that, it is our country of the year.
