National Support for World Order

The research aims to discover the causal factors that make some nations more supportive of world order than others. Seven indicators of national support for world order are identified. Scores on them and on a combined index for 114 nations are obtained. Switzerland and three Scandinavian nations rank at the top, the United States is at rank 40, and the Soviet Union at 72. Five significant causal factors are identified, which yield a multiple correlation coefficient of .69 with the Index of National Support for World Order. The most powerful predictor is the degree to which citizens of a nation participate in international nongovernmental organizations. Less powerful are national levels of enlightenment, urgency of foreign trade, productivity relative to reference nations, and, negatively, population pressure.