I read somewhere that no human well organized project/group can be involve than 100,000 people (that's the limit of our ability to have a group project). If you look historically no successful project or organization has been able to exceed that number for long (armies, building the pyramids etc).

I propose that something similar applies to countries. Once you exceed a certain population level, the ability to effectively govern as a unified country begins to deteriorate (all else being equal and assuming no severe shortage of natural resources). I'm not sure what the magic cut off is but..
Case in point: let's look at the top countries by population (using wikipedia):

1 China 1,339,724,852
2 India 1,210,193,422
3 United States 312,011,000
4 Indonesia 237,556,363
5 Brazil 190,732,694
6 Pakistan 176,960,000
7 Nigeria 158,423,000
8 Bangladesh 151,105,000
9 Russia 142,905,200
10 Japan 127,950,000

In the top 10, only Japan doesn't have have serious organizational issues.

1) China: no matter how well meaning the central government is/isn't, they've had issues with local provinces/municipalities being corrupt and not able to control them well since at least the 19th century.

2) India: Giant corrupt mess. Granted the british fubared them good and they are doing the best they can. Still not a lot of ability to exert central control

3) United States. This one is somewhat touchy. I would say that while it's true that the US is arguably better organized than most on this list, there are huge sections of certain metropolitan areas that are falling apart or have a breakdown of law and order (ghettos more so than any other industrialized nation).

4) Indonesia (see India)

5) Brazil I'll let someone who knows more about south america comment on this one

6) Pakistan (see india only not quite as bad in a way)

7) Nigeria: massive corrupt mess and central control in name only. Exacerbated more by internal and external looting of resources. This is what people from there have told me.

8)Bangladesh: Basically part of the India thing

9) Russia: (insert in soviet russia joke)

10) Japan: Probably the most homogeneous densely packed population compared to the above. Maybe that partly helps.. although not off free.

What do all those have in common? Except for Pakistan, they all have a ton of resources and riches. They are all over 100 million people and they all (in theory) have enough resources to keep their population going.

And yes, there are far more messed up countries than the above, but usually it's due to war or lack of resources.

I wonder if there is some kind of correlation between country population and issues like this.

Obviously it's not a complete explanation.. populations/countries can be quite rich and happy and still have rampant corruption/disorganization.

But I wonder if there is a connection.

I think you have a very good point when citing Japan's relatively uniform populace.

go canada!

There may be a correlation, but it is important to remember that correlations does not mean causation. Perhaps instead of looking at countries at large, you should look at population centers.

from a stats standpoint my use of correlation is correct. I form a hypothesis first and then look at the data (and not reverse) :P

The reason why I am looking at countries and not cities is because the top level of organization is the nation state and not the municipal government. Ultimately they are the ones who call all the shots in terms of set up and division of powers/authority. How much power/control they have depends on the system of government of course, but ultimately once they are there, the final decisions rest with them. In the case of democracy the final judgement for their decisions rests with the voters and the voters can turf 'em. But while they are the government they have.."the power". Even things like constitutions and bills of rights can theoretically be overridden/changed on their initiative under the right pre-conditions.
When it comes to population centers their success/failure is more resource and governance driven (as well as how benevolent a higher level of government feels). Also how population centers within a country are governed is really determined by the national government either directly or via an intermediate level like a state or a province.

I'm also not arguing against immigration or for population controls:P

I think you have the idea down, but hypotheses don't quite work like that. You make hypothesis, and then you go about proving it by showing a reproduceable correlation whilst taking into account as much as you can - variables.

You haven't taken any variables into account, and in this case, probably the most important of which are culture, history and geography.

Let's forget culture and history for now. Let's go through your list, looking at geography only.

Note: "Infrastructure," in this case, refers to roadways, transportation and ease of access to remote areas.

1. China - one of the largest countries in the world. poor infrastructure.
2. India - Quite a large country. very, very poor infrastructure.
3. United States - one of the largest countries in the world, good infrastructure.
4. Indonesia - large country, poor infrastructure, and also to make it worse, and archipelago.
5. Brazil - very large country, infrastructure is also abysmal.
6. Pakistan - large country, terrible infrastructure, local governments controlled by tribes.
7. Nigeria - one of the smaller countries on the list, very poor infrastructure.
8. Bangladesh - another small country, probably the *worst* infrastructure on the list.
9. Russia - Largest country in the world, poor infrastructure, rife with corruption.
10. Japan - small country, good infrastructure.

Now, geography isn't a good test of your argument either. But see, I also made a correlation, and came roughly to the same conclusions you did.

On your list, the two countries with the most stability are Japan and the USA. I would say that between the two, Japan is the more stable. Why? Just based on geography, their infrastructure is better, and their country is smaller. The USA also has a very good infrastructure, but it's much larger.

Historically, a large territory is harder to control and administer.

My point isn't that you're wrong, it's that it's not that so simple.

China has been fluffed up for the past 3200 years or so. Constant wars and fighting within the original population, and people that invade china.

They had a chance back in 1947 or so when they the commies took over. but they just didn't have enough knowledge / technology to control.

give China another 20 years, they will become a super power, that is, if they start managing things right.

which they probably won't.

haha, Martian has a Phd in actuarial science (aka predictive stats), I think he understands how empirical hypothesis testing works :P

PS: I agree with his statement, empirical work isn't about proving something to be true. One cannot even prove something to be true via emprical hypothesis testing. One can only prove something NOT to be true, or fail to prove something not to be true (but failing to prove something is untrue does not imply that it is in fact true).

/ends rant.

People that invade China? Blame the British and Japanese for that one LMAO.

*realizes she's of British and Japanese decent, quits laughing*

PhD in predictive stats or not, I still disagree with his correlation. It is interesting and worth discussing, though.

And it was in 1949 when Mao took power, Forgotten. For the decade previous, the Japanese (some of my great grand relatives included) fluffed China sideways starting as far back as 1932-33. While a lot of what the Japanese did was wrong, had the U.S. not become involved *before* Pearl Harbor, December 7 would have just been another day of the week in the U.S. for the last 70 years.

Disclaimer: I am not trolling here, just stating historical fact, think what you want of me, I don't care. I am a third generation Japanese-American some of my relatives were uprooted from California, Hawaii and elsewhere along the Pacific coast over Pearl Harbor, and sent to internment camps here in the state (Utah) I am living in now. You can read up on the bullfluff they had to go through, and what would today be considered a hideous breach of human rights.

I actually took a course on the interment of the Japanese. Actually, I can't remember if it was an entire course -- if it wasn't, it took up a substantial portion of our time.

I am quite familiar with the internment of the Japanese (or any Germans). Ironic that one of the most decorated military units in the Pacific theater was that of the Japanese-Americans.

hrm so you are saying I should stop exploring around 20k acres?

Martian,

I'm not saying that your use of correlation is incorrect. I agree that there is most likely a correlation. I just don't believe it has much to do with effective governance at the national level.

Of course, the thing I fail to see in your thesis is what your definition of effective governance and how you would go about measuring it. You seems to suggest that security and corruption would be the main indicator of poor governance.


I also take issue with your claim that "population centers within a country are governed is really determined by the national government either directly or via an intermediate level like a state or a province." Here you have two distinct governing bodies, and the governance of a state/province/municipality has much more affect on the population center than a national government.

... You don't think Japan has serious organizational issues? In the last 10 years, the Prime Minister has changed 10 times. The various legislative houses have been even more turbulent. Japan definitely isn't well organized at the governmental level.

However, none of this proves anything. If we accept that you've successfully demonstrated that large countries tend to be poorly organized (something which could still be disputed), you still need to demonstrate that small countries are well organized. This is something you seem to have made no attempt to do yet.

-Fooglmog
Guy with no clue.

I was just thinking that Pang. ;)

Where's the list of the least populated? =P

The least populous country is Vatican City. As we all know, the Vatican is not corrupt at all.

/sarcasm

I just compared the list to http://en.wikipedia.org/...tion_living_on_less_than_$2_per_day_2009.png (http://bit.ly/hyOSDj) and then looked at population density of those countries http://en.wikipedia.org/...by_population_density.svg

For the most part it seems that modernized countries with a medium-low population density work better than densely populated ones, until you look at central Europe. It seems that they are roughly at the same level of 'comfort' with much higher population densities. Then again, in contrast, most of Africa is moderately populated, yet they're the absolute worst for quality of life.

I tried to get a little more perspective (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse) though it was an interesting read (more of a scan really), it led me to think about debt.

I found this http://en.wikipedia.org/...ountries_by_external_debt

It seems that most of the least impoverished nations are the ones with the highest debt! As we can see with whats happening in the US right now, these levels of debt are unsustainable. I guess it boils down to government ethics and what they're willing to borrow to sustain a quality of life.

Our good fortune in western civilization is borrowed. Though we are smaller by population and richer in overall land, the decisions our governments have been making for the past 60ish years are starting to bite us in the ass. I dont know if thats 'better' than say problems China or India may have.

I think the US has some serious organizational issues. They mostly revolve around the centralization of power in the US, but then there is a self correction for too much centralization in the US. The greatest risk the US faces is that the states come together against the federal government and decide that there's just not all that much holding them together.

thanks to Japan... The US economy finally kicked in and saved us some long years of not being the best country to war everyone that looks at us wierd.

I think the countries that are best organized and have good infrastructure and quality of life, are the ones that have rich natural resources, and know how to take advantage of them. :P

damn, finally a thread that mentions my country, Indonesia!

More population usually means more culture, more tradition, more way of thinking..

And yeah, we have a large country with a very very poor infrastructure, especially outside of the capital city. Some islands are harder to reach than the other.. For an example, one would need a helicopter ride, then walk like 20-40km through the woods to get to some isolated villages...

Corruption is a huge problem too, because to be fair - it's too hard to keep track of every single transaction we do, especially on the remote places... Too much bureaucracy.

To make it worse, religion and culture in Indonesia influences too many of people's decision.. too many people are content to do what they've been doing, because "everyone else does it", "it is haram", and "it's been like that for a hundred years". Afraid of change, I must say.

All of that contributes to the demise of the country...

All in all, the country would be better if it actually disbands into five or six different countries. It would be easier with smaller amount of population, less chain of command, and less culture conflicts.

I'm curious what the extent of "for long" is. Are we talking a few months, years, decades?

I have never been, but from what I understand about China, their infrastructure is improving at astounding rates, and they are making moves to control the more "wild" provinces. I have no idea whether either of these things are resulting in a substantial change, or will have any impact on their overall status though.

So far as Brazil - horrid infrastructure in 90% of the country, and ghettos comparable to the U.S., if not more expansive.

The only other thought that springs to mind is whether or not form of governance would play a factor in the overall outcome of a comparison of population vs. effectiveness/ability to govern.

The Great Wall of China, no less than 300,000 builders at any one time. I suppose you could argue that because it wasn't all built at one time it would not be a long period but each build was still what I would consider long. A million man force working for 37 years though in a single project seems long to me.

Walmart Corporation, a somewhat centralized company with a workforce the size of a small countries population. Not the best example because it's stores operate within themselves, but still comparable to a country. I think it is managed well enough to say compared to any country in the world, none could compete with the pure logistics as efficiently as it.

Many examples come to mind actually. I don't buy the hard limit statement at all.

That is just a small part of your post however, and I completely agree that the greater the country population, the lesser the control. If president Obama walked into a house and told them to turn off their T.V. he would be slapped or shot.

Hu Jintao? Who?! He would be lucky to be recognized at all, and even after so the owner of the home would make a few calls and eventually Hu Jintao would get a call and the owner could keep his television on and probably get free cable for the interruption.

Where as let's say Hugo Chavez walked into a Venezuelan home, the owner would likely give him the T.V. Perhaps that owner would still join a an underground anti-government party.

Kim Jong-il? I doubt the owner could stop worshiping/trying to escape long enough to even notice.

My list helps your theory but it also adds other possible explanations. Culture play a huge role. More important than actual historical culture is the influences of other cultures and how the culture has grown.

Take China for example, it has had a rapid move in culture in the past 30 years. When once people would bow to their leader and old ways would be observed, now you have a tendency toward greed and self before all else. They expect the government to stay out of their way and when the government interferes they use their contacts and the greed of those contacts to right all problems. They only value old traditions that do not get in the way of their hustle and bustle lives.

USA is a great example of cultural change. Where once freedom was everything now the masses bow down and gladly give up all freedoms with out a question asked. A culture once bent on being free has all but been enslaved. I can state with confidence that 30 years ago had some government agent told a man he would be pulling his wife over in the corner and molesting her to ensure she has no weapons, and that if they did not submit they will not be flying and will be arrested, that government agent would be killed where he stood.

India from what I know of them hasn't seen such a big shift. The game is the same but the tools and rewards have changed. Where once was women, land, or fame now stands money, trinkets, and staying out of the way of the government. I have always pictured it somewhat like Bartertown from Mad Max. The belief is still there unlike China, but now it's for sale to the highest bidder.

Foxconn?

http://news.cnet.com/.../just-how-big-is-foxconn/

Then again, not without their problems, of course...

http://gizmodo.com/...rom-foxconns-hell-factory

@tan: as I stated (or should have stated) above, population size is obviously not the *only* factor. History, who your neighbors are play a huge part in it. Infrastructure is something that is built by either government or individual organizations within a country. The ability to build infrastructure is wealth/organizational dependent. Good infratructure seems necessary for success but not sufficient. The Romans, ancient chinese were partly successful because of infrastructure, but were only able to built it because (in their cases) the central government had control/resources to make it happen. In africa, the colonial powers built infrastructure and it didn't do them a bit of good after independence for a whole host of reasons which have nothing to do with my argument.


What I posted was the "test" of my hypothesis. I realize I'm oversimplifying but I"m arguing that population size (once you exceed a certain level) definately has influence but is not the only factor.

@QiXiongMao, the case of the great wall is a great counter example. But there probably is an upper limit of some kind. The pyramids had roughly a force of 100,000. And other than the great wall, I can't think of any other large scale human construction project that would have required more than that.

Walmart not so much because each individual store is a project, when you go up a level it is based on store count and head office and not store employee count. It is a way to circumvent the limit.


@Fooglmog: Just because it works in one direction, doesn't mean it has to work in the reverse. I'm arguing that *one* of the factors that can cause problems is having a population beyond a certain point. It clearly isn't the only thing (look at central/east africa for example). Just because you lack one factor doesn't mean you are out of the woods. For example, smoking increase your risk of cancer. However not smoking doesn't garuntee you won't get cancer. My argument is, in part that large populations increase corruption. However so does war, famine, financial crises (argentina), and other events that could cause a breakdown in law and order or mass poverty.


Admittedly population vs issues is a hard thing to test because prior to the 20th century the resources/diseases constraining your population was a much bigger factor in many places in the world. NOt really illustrating my above argument but: Black Plague -> population decrease ->economic boom.

@Angel1: It's very possible that decentralization of power could mitigate the issue. However in some parts of the world that causes other problems when resources are very unevenly distributed between areas (like ethiopia and somalia).

*The Red Cross hosts more than 200,000 blood drives a year as a charitable organization.


*UPS has over 400k employees and delivers more than 15mil packages a day.

*(As somene previously noted) Walmart has over 2 million employees and sell to over 100 million customers a week.

*The Catholic Church has over 1.1 (closer to 1.2) billion members and over 400,000 priests worldwide.

It's not easy to manage 100k+, but it is certainly doable with good organization. I think the issue today is you can manage larger amounts with less managers because of advances in technology. Managing a massive army or project without the ability to rapidly communicate would have been extremely difficult and required a much more rigid system of divisonal controls.

Martian,

I'm curious to know how many sigmas your correlation has. Currently I can only see one. Statistically, that can't be good.

@trumper: maybe I should clarify that (and I realize I didn't). it's number of people on a single project. If I were to extend that to business, in light of your counterexamples I would say that it probably applies to individual business units rather than a corporate entity as a whole. (No branch has >100K employees, no church has > 100K priests).
People participating in a church is not quite the same thing imo.

As far as managing more people with fewer managers, it really depends on what you are doing. In my field the technology allows individuals to do more but it doesn't allow a manager to supervise more people because in this case most "managing" involves talking to and guiding employees which is not something that can be increased by any technology I know. I guess the manager is supervising more projects though..

@nightshade: regarding china: they were being "fluffed sideways" in the 19th century by various european powers as well as a variety of internal issues.

As an aside: the book "Germs, guns and steele" would argue other things..

Would we count fans rooting for their home team in some of the massive football and soccer stadiums around the world? I guess that's not really a project so-to-speak.

From a governance standpoint the technology permits fewer work stations and more capacity per employee. But no government wants to ever reduce actual employee pins/positions so it hasn't changed their either.

Again, what is your definition of effective governance?

It's a trick question and largely an oxymoron.

If your trying to prove this hypothesis martian, a much better thing to study I would think would be comparing the 50 different states that make up America. 2 random countries differ in so many ways not just population.

Effective governance is a difficult one.
I think the quote: "the role of government is to ensure the general welfare of the population" suffices. And before you go ahead and suggest that that necessarily means communism or socialism I should point out that "ensuring the general welfare" could mean simply providing armed services and some form of law enforcement, the government opting to be small and not very involved is one possible route towards overall general welfare; it varies from country to country.

In essence the reflection of effective governance is:
1) protecting your countries independence to make decisions for itself (be it the dictator or the elected government). (autonomy)
2) level of corruption (enforcement of rules)
3) level of crime (public safety)
4) ability to maintain infrastructure (be it directly or via the private sector)

some might argue that life expectancy should be there but I would argue that various things can influence that that have little to do with governance.
I leave out GDP because some countries simply have less access to resources than others.

there are lies, damn lies, and statistics

@bobby: the issue with the states is that there is a higher body which can impose its will on them to some extent (and also give them money and subsidize them). This makes comparison harder.

I could compare Canada (30 million) to the US (>300 mil) for example
1) autonomy: arguably the US is stronger
2) corruption: Canada has a lower rate
3) crime: Canada has a lower rate
4) ability to maintain infrastructure: Canada. Although Quebec isn't helping us...

I"m not saying that the US is particularly bad in 2,3,4; these are just relative compares.

I dunno what one would compare china to though:P

mm, I would argue that Canada's small population density compared to the US makes it harder for Canada to maintain infrastructure.

We need more of it in order to serve fewer people, the critical mass isn't achieved.

true. But if you look at toronto/vancouver/montreal/edmonton/calgary/halifax vs
Cleveland/detroit/chicago/baltimore/Atlanta there's a clear difference.
(hence comparing urban to urban)

Yes the roads fall apart faster in Canada, but that's weather related.
Didn't say Canada spends less/capita than the US:P

Sean - The pyramids were built by aliens not 100k people >:(

Historically ANglo/Saxon Countries- Above average levels of orginization/structure.

The REST of the world that the ANglo-saxons have raped pillaged plundered from over the last 500 yrs- not as well organized/as much structure overall....in comparison...though there are exceptions.


I think that's a good way to look at it:)

You honestly are way too short sighted.

The past hundred years? That's only 3% of what I am talking about.

Chinese civilization has been around for thousands of years.

the first record kingdoms documented were around 3200 years ago. Not to mention the many legends of kingdoms in even earlier times.

but in the 3100 years or so between the first recorded kingdom to the 1900 A.D. China was torn apart, put together, back apart, manay, many, many times.

Yet it could not stop the Chinese inventors from inventing things such as printing, gun powder, compass, and even paper.

for an even more shocking experience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ist_of_Chinese_inventions




Had it not been all these internal and external warfare, China probably would have had spaceships by now


no joke

War actually has a tendancy to spur innovation Forgotten. Many of the biggest breakthroughs were achieved through military research.

Thus, it is actually more likely that China would be further behind had they been more peaceful.

^ absolutely correct

+1 for merit

I think the premise here is too ambiguous to begin with, "the ability to effectively govern as a unified country begins to deteriorate" is pretty damned ambiguous.

You cannot just make a comment like "there are far more messed up countries than the above, but usually it's due to war or lack of resources" as a way of excluding statistical flyers. Civil war is by definition an inability to effectively govern.

Apply Occam's razor, is the effectiveness of governance most effectively modeled by correlating it with population? Is there a simpler answer? Perhaps, perhaps not. Before we can come up with a simpler answer we need a better question, how do we measure effectiveness of government?

Right off the top of my head I see a correlation between theology and governance that is a hell of a lot more linear than population. Countries with the coolest climates also seem to correlate quite well with governance. Of the 10 countries you named, the best performing (Japan) also has the fewest natural resources, so it would seem that natural resources are bad too. I could go on, but I've made my point.

My point is - well there is not much of a point - other than that its hard to have good answers until we can define the questions.

+2 to Martian for a thought provoking thread that lets us flex the brain a bit though.

A country runs much like a corporation.

I am not disagreeing with your premise that the larger the population the more corruption (or chance of it). In fact I would agree, however I don't think it is based on some upper limit of control.

If you give one person the task to look after one hundred-thousand people and ensure they complete a project, that one person will fail and in all likelihood will abuse the power over those people. If you put two people with equal charge they would fail but corruption of power is much less an issue, rather fighting amongst the bosses. If you put 3 people or perhaps 2 with a boss above them, maybe you would have success. You likely could increase the amount of people on the project indefinitely.

So if you have an odd number democratic system, or more than 1 controller who also has at least 1 preferably more controllers you have diluted the absoluteness of the power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If we take out a leader of a group working on a project, I would say it will break down with 2 people. Maybe those 2 people are of same mind but under no circumstance would you ever make it anywhere near 100k people. Groups of 5 generally can't even function without a leader.

A country falls into this pattern too. More accidental. The USA has less corruption because it has more checks and balances. It probably has more observant supervision the higher up the ladder you go. The problem there is likely that the governing body is too expansive and too divisional to be effective.

Police/DOJ/DOD/DOT/FBI/SEC/FCC/SS/TSA/DHS/NSA/DEA/ATF/IRS/ETC all watch the people, all with their own databases, all with their own agents, all with their own laws and rules, all with their own hierarchy of leadership, and all watch for their own thing. They are likely not that corrupt because they have their own hierarchies of leadership and because there is enough feet stepping among them that the chance of getting caught is very high. The problem is just the alphabet I posted above is larger than most countries entire government combined. They all have individual databases so the efficiency and communication is very poor. That was just those that monitor what people do and likely I have missed a number of them.

China has the opposite problem really. There government is minuscule compared to the amount of people they watch. They have very poor documentation or rights to view the laws. There is disorganization and a lack of well known route of grievance. If you have issue with the local police station, you must still deal with the local police station. You have issue with the provincial government, well too bad because that is who you must deal with. They all are on the same level as the national government. They have a hierarchy but it is not for you to know and unless you have friends with in that you mean little. It's all who you know and the quickest way to get to know someone is through money. You want to keep your job when the company wants to downsize, you take your boss to expensive dinners and give the cash gifts weekly.

I think you are overlooking the concept of a national identity. China, India, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, and Japan all have strong identitic histories of a specific group of people and customs. If the deterious effects of current governance tip the scales, the people of a common identity will rise up and reform along ideas currently envogue.

1) China - Has massive foreign currency reserves, a population of 1.34m projected to peak in 2030 at 1.40m with over 50% now living in urban areas. They are raising state paid education from 9 years to 12, allowing One-Child Couples to have 2 children, and raising minimum wages. The common Chinese language and 92-98% Han population represent a commonality that has survived one conquest after another. I don't approve of all their policies, to put it nicely, but they are stable enough for another 100 years.

2) India - Is another ancient society, but a multicultural one. There are 31 Indian national languages, but only English and Hindi nation wide. The empire was forged by the Monguls, not the British though. There is so much poverty in India that there is a common spirit and it is a true religious melting pot with more Christians than England and more Jains than Iran. Democracy is flurishing, although struggling with the enormity of their situation. Over the last decade, it's pulled it's Corruption Index up from 2.7 to 3.3, a long way to go still, but a solid voice in government.

3) USA - The US tried to break up once, and was brought back at the point of a gun. What would stop Washington from declaring Marshall Law and sending the military against a state in sucession? If you aren't talking about a dissolution of the United States, China and Europe are too heavily invested to let the nation walk away. The American Dream for the last 50 years is that they government can spend more money than taxes are collected. I expect decades more of languishing for the US 'recovery', but the devaluation of America will be the rise of world income. The US has a history of coming up with a game-changer, though. Any new industry based in America could give the US economic hope beyond 2030. The US will continue to push other nations to spend on joint military as it scales back it's own. We continue the slow march to unified world governance.

4) Indonesia - Undergone governmental reform in the last 7 years, increasing direct accountability. They might be prone to fractionalization, but money from the central government keep the districts willing to stay in union, after seeing the neglect and mismanagement of Nauru. As of 2010, an estimated 13.3% of the population was living below poverty line, and the unemployment rate was 7.1%. A multi-ethic mostly segregated society the local governance has taken over from 350 years of Dutch supervision.

5) Brazil - The Portuegese half of South America didn't fracture into regional states like the Spainish half, so why would it now? Brazil is done will in the first decade of this century. They've been purging corruption and prohibitive trade practices. The economy is expanding with some 200k hectacres of American farmland now replaced by Brazilian farmers. Gone of the days of TV Shows with janitorial jobs as prizes. The language connection gives strong roots with Portugal and the EU, as well as unity against the Spainish surrounding. Any state that might breakaway would like to claim the rainforests. It'd be a bloody mess, but no worse that what's ongoing in Columbia or Nicaragua.

6) Pakistan - aka Muslim India. They are united by culture and religion. One of the few major non-Arab Islamic countries, it has a spirit of unity and persecution at the hands of Mongols, British and Hindus in turn. The military rule should not outlast 50-80 years, but maybe an 'Arab Spring' might come sooner than expected. Again, no sense of the group disintergating, only the current specific governance.

7) Nigeria - Debt free and people rich. The first country in Africa to clear its national debt, Nigeria is now investing heavy on infrastructure penetration. Again, democracy tendencies have sprung up in the last 12 years. They had elections this year after an encumbant died in office, and a Dr. Goodluck Jonathan filled the gap and stepped aside for the elected president. The are funding the rehabilitation of Lake Chad and building a large hydro-electric dam to bring both fresh/desalinated water and electricity from the shore inland. Corruption is bad, but most of Africa is, but the potential and desire for change is there.

8) Bangladesh - A case that shows the strength of cultural identity, Bangladesh has little effective government and massive poverty. Smaller governance groups would not elevate that poverty without the same investment of knowledge and resources. The people of Bangladesh endure, they could become 12 countries, but to what purpose?

9) Russia - A country of patchwork nations with a uniting language base. The USSR already broke up, and while a few parts of Russia might not want to stay in the union, they are by no means allowed to consider leaving. Russia has the nukes and other weapons to make it happen and the nutballs willing to scrotch their own people to make a point. They also have the natural resources to continue playing at the game of states. The mixture of political structure, criminal structure, and economic prosperity means corruption there is just another form of success.

10) Japan - The most monolithic culture in the world, and a wacky one at that. Japan is a nation that has undergone tremendous change over the last 202 years since the Americas opened their ports at gun point. The Japanese are a mature and aging culture, who have seen the benefit of industrialization and worked with a commonality through building a nation, then rebuilding it after the war and dreams of empire.

None of these 10 population masses is going to seriously decline or fragment due to their overriding commonalities. It's the same reason Quebec stayed in Canada dispite all the frustrations and differences: because it's worth it.

Effective group size is affected by group linkages, and modern communication styles apply to a much more diverse pattern of usage making stats from the 1990s or early outmoded. I am mostly hoping to live to see a democratic revolution to replace the ineffective represtative model which is predisposed to power seekers, short-sighted planning, and political pandering.