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Suggest Reasons Why This Data Has Been Used to Produce the Superpower Index.Docx

Decent Essays

Suggest reasons why this data has been used to produce the superpower index (10 marks)

A superpower is a country which exerts influence and power onto other countries through their military, economic growth, GDP, resources, physical size, population and belief systems. A superpower is referred to as a dominant global force in which the USA, China and the EU are all thought to be part of. In order to analyse whether a country may be a superpower or not is through a superpower index whereby the factors of population, GNP, TNC headquarters, patent filings and oil reserves are considered.

Firstly, it should be observed that, as the title reads, the table is only a ‘possible’ superpower index, and therefore alternative combinations of …show more content…

Moreover, oil can be used to control countries due their high demand and dependent on the resource. As a result, the more oil reserves a country has, the more influence they have on other nations, and therefore the more likely they are to be a superpower. The figure shows that Russia has 60 billion barrels of oil, which therefore contributes to the nations superpower status.

The amount of patent filings for scientific and technological innovations is a relevant category in regards to producing the superpower index. The reason for this is because it is indicative of quaternary sector employment, which generally equates to higher income due to the high standard of research that can be gathered and then sold on to other countries at a high price. Additionally, a large number of patents enables a country to become dominant sellers of a product, therefore allowing them to be the main exporter, increasing the country’s cultural influence; this also allows a country to gain a large profit. The factor of population is significant here, as a large population may result in a large number of researchers, and therefore a large number of entrepreneurs, contributing to a countrys’ influence on global markets. The figure shows that the USA has the highest ranking in regards to this factor, highlighting its superpower status as the country has 391,000 patents and innovations compared to the lowest ranked country of Brazil, which only has 4,750.

To conclude, the factors of

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